Dragon Treasure
by Raberba girl
Summary: Modern AU. Hiccup & Toothless have spent eight years in a cage, having nothing to live for but each other. Stoick has devoted his career to rescuing children from abusive environments, but Night Furies are a little outside his expertise. The last thing Valka expected to see in her estranged husband's house was an orphaned twelve-year-old boy and one of the rarest dragons on earth.
1. Chapter 1 - Performance

Dragon Treasure

A DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl

Summary: Modern AU. Hiccup & Toothless have spent eight years in a cage, having nothing to live for but each other. Stoick has devoted his career to rescuing children from abusive environments, but Night Furies are a little outside his expertise. The last thing Valka expected to see when she walked into her estranged husband's house was an orphaned twelve-year-old boy and one of the rarest dragons on earth. **(Rated for references to physical and sexual child abuse.)**

A/N: I had included my usual "No slash" notation at first, but then realized that this fic has complications. Hopefully you know me well enough by now to know what sort of thing I would be able to write and what sort of thing I would never write. The main thing is that all the Hiccup/Toothless in this fic is platonic.

 **Chapter 1 - Performance (rough draft)**

Stoick Vast, after years of hard work and faithful service, had become the head of his department. It was what he'd always hoped for, but the downside was that his job now seemed to mostly consist of endless paperwork, phone calls, and meetings. He was a physically active man and missed fieldwork, where he had a more fulfilling sense of actually _getting things done_ and _having a real purpose_.

Not only was the desk job too distant, but he also didn't want to miss sight of his subordinates' perspectives and challenges. The last thing Stoick wanted was to become responsible for the very same sort of red tape that had so frustrated him earlier in his career.

That was why Stoick still did fieldwork sometimes. That was why he was in a circus tent on a muggy Friday night, surrounded by a vulgar, yelling, dirty crowd, watching a scantily clad and probably underage young woman putting on a performance that bore very little resemblance to any mainstream circus act.

The crowd bellowed in gleeful delight at the close of the performance, and the tattooed ringmaster swept back into the spotlight. "That was our beautiful Heavenly Sasheena! Give her another round, gentlemen!"

More bills and coins showered the perimeter of the ring, accompanied by another wave of cheers and applause.

The ringmaster bowed out of the spotlight, seamlessly replaced by another. The two men appeared to be partners, switching off between the lewd acts and the more circus-like acts. "And NOW! I present to you our prized wonder from the deepest reaches of the Sahara! The most deadly and elusive dragon known to man: the _Night Fury_! No one has ever laid eyes on the beast and lived to tell the tale - UNTIL NOW!" The second ringmaster seemingly vanished, and the ring went dark.

A moment later, a harsh beam of light snapped on, illuminating the small figure who was being slowly lowered through the air. It was a girl with long blonde hair, dressed in a flimsy white dress, dangling from a pair of chains that bound her wrists. Stoick's breath came short, and his hands clenched as he heard the crowd react with glee rather than anything near the disgust and worry he felt. Even if this was all an act, the girl looked so young and small and vulnerable...and hadn't the ringmaster said something about a _dragon_?

The girl's feet touched one of the middle platforms. For a long moment, she slumped there seemingly unconscious, and an anticipatory hush fell over the crowd.

Then, from beyond the beam of light, came a growl. Stoick's breath caught again when he glimpsed a predator's eyes in the darkness.

The virgin sacrifice stirred, and the noise of the crowd started up again. The girl groaned, shakily found her footing, and tugged at the chains that bound her.

There was another growl.

The light in the ring began to shift, the harsh beam slowly fading away as softer lights gradually illuminated the interior of the tent. A large, black, winged shape was now visible in the shadows, green eyes fixed on its prey.

The helpless girl saw it, too. She shrieked and jerked back, the chains preventing her from moving far. The crowd was yelling with excitement now, and the only reason Stoick hadn't charged down into the ring was that the girl's continued screams sounded more like a child shouting on a playground than cries of true terror.

Still, it made Stoick sick to watch. The dragon expelled a blast of fire that exploded nearly at the girl's feet as she struggled wildly and screamed for help. Then the beast launched itself at her with claws outstretched.

The girl jerked to the side just in time. The animal barely missed her, staggered to a landing on the other side of the platforms, and shook its head in surprise before growling and turning back for a second attempt.

To Stoick's relief, the girl finally managed to yank one of her arms free. The other arm was still bound, and even her free arm still had a length of chain attached to it, but perhaps this was more of an advantage than not. When the dragon leaped at her again, the girl let out a savage yell and snapped the broken chain at it like a whip.

From then on, Stoick was able to relax a little, as the performance aspect became more apparent. The girl transformed from helpless victim to vengeful warrior, breaking free of the second chain and battling the dragon in earnest. There was a bad moment when the dragon pounced and pinned her under its claws, lowering its head to start mauling her, but somehow she managed to throw it off.

Stoick became uneasy again when he saw the girl's skin and dress, as well as the dragon's scales, become streaked with something bright red, but he kept telling himself that surely it wasn't real blood. If nothing else, the dragon and its handler were valuable resources; whoever ran the circus wouldn't want either of them to get damaged during a performance, right?

The 'blood'-stained girl, her hair now in artful disarray and her dress starting to fall off one shoulder, had beaten the dragon into whimpering submission. After placing her foot on the dragon's neck and making a dominant pose for a moment, the girl stepped back and began to bark out commands. The dragon submissively obeyed each one, performing tricks until it finally ended with a deep bow.

The former virgin sacrifice leaped astride the dragon's back, cried out triumphantly as the animal shot one last blast of fire into the air, then made a couple of circuits of the ring, waving, before exiting with her winged beast.

Honestly, Stoick was impressed. He would have preferred a less...fetishistic expression of her skills, but it was still amazing that anyone could have such control over a dragon, a _Night Fury_ , of all things. He was sure that Valka could have done it, but he could imagine no one else who'd be able to forge such a powerful connection with a giant fire-breathing lizard.

Stoick waited impatiently through the finale, eyes mostly on the dragon tamer and her beast when they came out with the other performers. Then, at long last, was the confusion and chaos of the crowd exiting the tent.

Stoick made his way to the backstage area, where performers (mostly adult males, he noted) were laughing and drinking together. He noticed flashes of sparkle and color and female voices through a doorway under a sign that read 'Harem.' The tattooed ringmaster was standing under the sign accepting admission fees, and Stoick started heading in that direction, but then he passed a large cage and forgot to keep walking.

The dragon was inside, and so was a human. It was a boy, about twelve years old, with ragged auburn hair and pale skin covered with freckles and scars. He was barely clothed, and had streaks of what was now obviously dried red paint peeling away from his skin. The white virgin sacrifice dress lay discarded outside the cage, in a pile with the blonde wig, the chains, and what must have been a set of false breasts. The boy and dragon were interacting with playful affection, the dragon nuzzling and licking and gently pawing at the boy, who laughed and petted and praised the creature.

Stoick observed all this in a single moment, for in the next moment, the dragon fixed its eyes on Stoick, pupils contracting in a way that instantly transformed its expression from loving and cute to alert and dangerous. It took the boy a beat longer to react, but then he noticed Stoick as well, and scrambled to his feet with a wary expression and a hand grasping the dragon's shoulder. All the unguarded affection had evaporated, though a bond seemed to remain between boy and beast.

"You're the virgin sacrifice," Stoick blurted out.

"Makes for a better show," the boy said tonelessly.

Stoick frowned at the cage, suddenly realizing that it was locked. Even though the boy was inside. With the dragon. "Do you have the key to this?" Stoick asked. He took the opportunity to step closer and surreptitiously plant a micro-camera on the cage.

"Do you?"

The larger ringmaster came sweeping up before Stoick could reply. He was one of the only men Stoick had ever seen who was as tall and bulky as Stoick himself was, though the man otherwise looked different, with long black hair and cold eyes set deep in a scarred, craggy face. "That one's not available," the ringmaster snapped, "unless you're willing to go through the dragon to get to him."

"The dragon?" Stoick fumbled, trying to figure out if the man was implying what Stoick thought he was. The dragon in question was now growling at the ringmaster, until its young handler murmured something to it.

"He'd be expensive, anyway. You think I have anyone else who can handle this beast? You think you can pay enough to make it worth my while?" The man then listed an astonishingly high price, an amount virtually no one would pay.

As Stoick was still gaping, caught off-guard by how...well, by how easy this job apparently was, since the tip they'd received had pretty much now been confirmed, the ringmaster grinned. "That's what I thought. Of course, there's always the harem - we've got one or two who'll probably suit your tastes." He named the admission fee, which was a much more typical amount. Stoick felt sick at the offer's implication.

He finally gathered enough of his wits back together, pretending to be tipsy as he fumbled for his wallet. "That's...that's, er...I didn't know it'd be that much," he whined. "I don't think I-"

"Get out," the ringmaster snapped, his expression changing to one of disgust. " _Leave_ , before I have the dragon chase you out."

Stoick started to shuffle away, stealing a glance at the dragon handler in the cage as he did. The boy was pale and tense but otherwise composed, his hand still clutching the beast. The dragon was pressed close, its whole body and tail curving around the boy in a protective arc, altering between a worried look at the boy, a suspicious glance at Stoick, and a glare of sheer hatred at the ringmaster.

 _'Just hold on for a few more days,'_ Stoick thought sadly. _'We're coming for you. I promise.'_

o.o.o.o.o

Fortunately, one of the other agents had made it close to the 'harem,' as well as the central backstage area; another had gotten a camera planted on the ring. Between the four feeds, the department was able to monitor much of went on at the alleged 'circus,' piecing together the daily lives of its inhabitants.

There were six females total, two of them likely underage. There were three male minors, including the dragon handler. It took nearly a week of surveillance before there was enough collected evidence to indicate that, along with two of the adult women and one man, four of the five underage performers were also apparently doubling as sex workers.

The fifth minor was the dragon handler, who spent every moment caged right alongside his animal except during rehearsals and some training, performance prep, and the next performance itself. The boy's long hours in the cage were spent in constant interaction with his dragon. When they weren't sleeping curled up together or sharing the buckets of fish that were tossed in to them at mealtimes, they were often either playing or training.

Sometimes they would play like animals, pouncing at each other and wrestling and growling and snapping. It looked awful, but the boy never seemed to get hurt, and he was often laughing as he teased and grappled with the deadly beast. (Said deadliness was eroded a bit by the boy's name for the creature, which sounded a lot like "Toothless.")

Other times, the boy would work on training his animal, either with verbal commands or equivalent hand signals. When morsels of food weren't available as rewards, the dragon seemed happy to obey commands in exchange for permission to lick or nuzzle its handler instead - 'kisses,' as the boy called them. In addition to various tricks, the dragon also altered its behavior on command, acting aggressively protective or harmlessly friendly depending on its handler's orders.

All this was what the boy taught on his own initiative. His training outside the cage was a different story - the larger ringmaster would loom over him and shout at him, agitate the dragon, and sometimes strike the boy with a rod or a whip. No medical care was given; the only treatment the boy received for his wounds was after he was thrown back into the cage, when his dragon companion would curl around him and lick away the blood.

The CWD now had sufficient evidence of crimes being committed against all five children. It was time for a raid.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I tried to look up whether the video footage recorded in the circus would count as legally- or illegally-obtained evidence, but my findings were inconclusive. *sweatdrop*

This is one of the many random story ideas that came to me at work. It was an image of Stoick as some kind of social worker or law enforcement officer who hears reports about a disreputable circus, goes to investigate, is surprised to find how affectionate HiccTooth are with each other backstage when they'd so recently acted very differently onstage, finds out that they're both being abused, and rescues them. I didn't think I could actually write it, so I just filed it away in my "Ideas" document, but after a few months it returned to me as a more coherent story. I still thought I shouldn't bother trying to write it, because it tackles _so many subjects_ that I have no firsthand experience with, but I finally decided to just suck it up and write it anyway and research as best I could. I had to do a lot more research than usual. *sweatdrop*

 **There are probably still errors, and feel free to correct me on anything, but in some cases I'll fall back on the excuse that this AU is a non-specific society that might have different laws and regulations than mine or yours. *sweatdrop***

This fanfic's rough draft is complete, so you can expect regular updates. It's ten chapters total (including the epilogue).

This is the first true multi-chaptered story I've diligently worked on and finished since _Little Wind_ , which I drafted in the fall of 2011, and _Christmas at the Castle_ , which I drafted in summer 2011. The multi-part stories I've posted in the meantime don't feel like multi-chapters to me, because they're either overgrown one-shots or written in standalone installments.

I wrote this story from start to finish in about 12 days, which, for me, is a rare case of sustained productivity...


	2. Chapter 2 - Rescue

_**Dragon Treasure**_ **, a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 2 - Rescue (rough draft)**

They struck soon after sunrise, when most of the circus men were still asleep and too hungover to resist their arrests much. A few did cause trouble, including one of the girls the CWD had come to rescue, and one of the ringmasters nearly got away. Stoick was helping two police officers subdue the raging hulk of a man when another officer hurried up. "Sir, there's- The dragon- We need, we would like-"

"Has the dragon hurt anyone?" Stoick demanded.

"Not yet, sir, but-"

"I'm on my way. Stay here and give these two a hand."

The dragon and its handler were still in their cage. The frightened-looking boy was clinging to the dragon's back; the beast itself was snarling savagely at the men who faced them. "Easy, now," Stoick murmured, holstering his gun and spreading his hands in a peaceful gesture, indicating for his men to back away. "We're here to help you, lad. Tell the dragon to calm down, we're not going to hurt either of you."

"What's happening?" the boy demanded.

"We're from the Child Welfare Department. We're shutting down this place and arresting everyone who's willingly employed here, everyone who's been hurting you and the other children. Everything's going to be all right now. What's your name?"

"Hiccup," the boy snapped. Stoick had heard the strange name once or twice during the surveillance, but hadn't been sure it was a real name, or that he'd been hearing right. "What are you going to do to Toothless?"

"It's all right, Hiccup. We're not here to hurt him, either. Dragons are an endangered species, protected by law. We're going to send him to a very nice dragon reserve in Africa, where he'll be safe and happy. My wife actually works there, she-"

"I'm going with him."

Stoick stared, taken aback. "Lad...Hiccup, it's- Listen, tell your dragon to calm down, and then-"

"I'm _going with him_ ," the boy snarled.

Stoick exhaled, reminding himself to keep his tone quiet and gentle. "Listen to me, Hiccup. Your dragon, 'Toothless' here, he's quite a rare and impressive beast, but he's also an exotic and very dangerous animal. We don't have anywhere to keep him here in this city. We have to send him somewhere where he'll be safe, but it's not going to be a place where we can send a young boy-"

"I don't care!" Hiccup shouted at him. "Anywhere he goes is fine for me! You can treat me like an animal all you want, lock me in a cage and make me eat off the floor, that's fine, I've been doing that my whole life - but you can't take me away from Toothless! Wherever he goes, I go!"

"Hiccup-"

"WHEREVER TOOTHLESS GOES, I GO!"

The dragon was snarling and shifting in response to its handler's agitation. To Stoick's horror, the animal opened its mouth, which began to be lit with the purple glow of its fire.

" _Hush_ ," Hiccup ordered, patting the dragon's neck. "Toothless, Hush!"

The dragon whined and closed its mouth without firing, folding its wings over the boy as if trying to hold him more closely onto its back.

Stoick was at a loss. He knew that the boy and the dragon loved each other dearly, but he hadn't anticipated such a vehement refusal to be separated. He certainly could not send the boy to a foster home with a dragon in tow, and now he wasn't sure what either of them would do if they were separated by force. And of course no one with a shred of decency was going to lock up a child in a dragon's cage. The poor boy probably didn't understand how unacceptable such a thing was; when was the last time, if ever, he had lived a normal life?

"Hiccup," Stoick said quietly, "we need to get you to a hospital, and they're not going to allow the dragon inside."

"I don't need a hospital."

Stoick tried hard to keep his temper. "Hiccup, this is my job. I can tell you, as a professional, that you most certainly need to go to a hospital, for some examinations and tests if nothing else. You _will_ be taken there, even if you need to be sedated first."

"You can't take me from my dragon! You can't take me from my dragon, you CAN'T!"

Stoick was waving his hands as if he could physically hold back the boy's defiance. "We'll let you ride in the same truck! All right?"

Hiccup narrowed his eyes suspiciously, the dragon growling as if to emphasize their shared mistrust.

"Will it be better if we take Toothless to the hospital along with you? He won't be able to go inside, but you can at least ride with him on the way."

"I'm not leaving my dragon."

"At least come out of the cage, and you can ride in the back with him."

"The only way I'm leaving this cage is if Toothless leaves it with me."

"The dragon's not going to die if you get a few feet away from him!" Stoick exclaimed in frustration.

"We've never been apart," Hiccup hissed. There was something strange about his expression, something close to fury but not quite. " _Never_."

In the surveillance footage, during the rare occasions when Hiccup had been released from the cage, his dragon had followed him everywhere, even in and out of the dressing rooms. Was it really possible that the pair had _literally_ never been out of each other's sight before?

"You _won't_ be separated in the truck," Stoick insisted. "If you want to ride in the back, you'll be right there, close enough to touch him; you just won't be in the cage."

"As soon as I come out of here, you'll slam the door on him and take him away from me," Hiccup accused.

Stoick was forced to give up. The best he could do was film Hiccup's vehement refusal as proof of the boy's insistence, then locate a key to the cage and film himself testing it to prove that it worked and then giving it to the young dragon handler. Hiccup stared at the key as if he thought it was a trick, but eventually he took it and slipped it into his ragged clothing.

The animal seemed to be nervous when the cage was transported to the vehicle, but Hiccup spoke reassuringly, and the dragon buried its snout in the boy's stomach and barely moved during the whole trip. Stoick rode in the back of the truck with them. Hiccup sat there, murmuring to Toothless and stroking the dragon's hide with such a loving expression that Stoick felt like it would be an intrusion to interrupt unnecessarily.

He did, however, speak up when he finally noticed that there was something odd about the dragon's tail. There was a fin at the tip of it, extending from one side, but there was nothing on the other side, which gave the tail an unbalanced look. "What happened here?" Stoick asked, reaching through the bars toward the tail but halting before he actually touched it.

"Oh...you want me to put his tail on?"

"What?"

"The fake fin, I mean. He has to wear it for performances- Are you taking us somewhere to perform?"

" _No_ , Hiccup. I told you, we're going to the hospital. What do you mean about a fake fin?"

Without letting go of Toothless, Hiccup stretched out his other arm and leaned back, fumbling along the perimeter of the cage until he grabbed hold of something that Stoick had overlooked as a rag or piece of debris. When Hiccup held it out to him, Stoick realized that it was actually some kind of flap, colored black like the dragon's hide, attached to a couple of straps with buckles. Fully extended as it dangled from Hiccup's fingers, it now closely resembled the dragon's tail fin in shape.

"They cut it off before I met him," Hiccup said in a low voice. "He has a scar there. They did it so he can't fly away."

"...I see." Stoick gently laid the false fin beside the dragon's tail, lining it up until he could see how it was meant to be attached and how it mirrored the flesh fin. He was glad that Valka wasn't here. She would be beside herself with anger, and heartbroken as well, to discover that a dragon had been maimed and crippled like this.

All went smoothly until they parked as close as they could to a hospital entrance and opened the back of the truck. Stoick beckoned. Hiccup stared at him like a deer in headlights and tightened his embrace on the dragon.

"Come now, lad. Don't worry, they'll take Toothless somewhere safe to wait for you."

"I'm not leaving," Hiccup said, his voice higher than usual. "And I have the key, so you can't get me out!"

"Bludvist had more than one key," Stoick said quietly, drawing a second key from his pocket.

Hiccup's face went pale. "Toothless, Guard Me," he commanded. The dragon immediately scrambled to its feet and planted itself in front of the boy, growling.

They had to tranquilize the animal. Hiccup flew into a panic in response, screaming and clinging desperately to his dragon and having to be physically pried away, at which point he fought tooth and nail to get free. They had to sedate him, too, just to get him into the hospital.

Hiccup stayed asleep as he was examined and treated for the injuries from his recent beatings, as well as some minor cuts and scrapes. Stoick was told he could expect to receive various test results throughout the coming week.

The boy began to regain consciousness as they were wrapping up his release paperwork. "Wh-Where's...m-my...dragon?" Hiccup asked, trembling hard enough to affect his speech.

"He's right outside, right where you left him," Stoick said soothingly, reaching to stroke the boy's hair out of his eyes and noticing the sweat on Hiccup's skin. "He's been asleep, too. Don't worry, lad, he won't even miss you; you'll be back by his side when he wakes up."

"T-Toothless...my d-dragon, I n-need my dragon, p-please, please, Tooth-thless...!" He was gasping now as if he could barely breathe, and a nearby nurse went to fetch some kind of medication.

Stoick knew what he should do. He should wait for the trained medical personnel to tend to the boy, he should follow the rules and protocol when they were put in place for good reasons.

But the panic in the child's eyes was hard to bear, and Stoick knew instinctively what the best remedy would be, and before he could give himself time to make a rational decision, he was scooping up the boy in his arms and striding down the corridor with him.

"Mr. Vast!"

Stoick ignored the people calling after him. He tried to remind himself to deliberately relax his grip - he was a strong man, and Hiccup was showing all the signs of a panic attack, and the last thing Stoick wanted to do was crush the boy when he was already suffering. "You'll see Toothless soon. That's where we're going right now, he's right there outside those doors. Try to take deep breaths, Hiccup."

The truck was rocking slightly from side to side, muffled dragon roars audible from within. Stoick was afraid to approach, and was starting to second-guess himself, but Hiccup was staring at the truck and straining toward it like a dying man desperate for relief.

"Sir, you should keep your distance-" one of his men started to say.

"The dragon-"

"Very dangerous right now-"

Stoick, cradling Hiccup in one arm, reached out with the other to yank open the back of the truck.

Toothless was half-awake, staggering back and forth in his cage, slamming his body so hard against the bars that the whole vehicle shook.

"Toothless," Hiccup croaked, and Stoick imagined he could almost hear Hiccup's name in the dragon's cries.

"Hiccup," Stoick warned, "the effects of the tranquilizer haven't completely worn off, he's-"

"I'm dying," Hiccup sobbed.

Stoick slowly reached for the key, wondering if he was making a huge mistake. Yet as he watched, Toothless grew still and sniffed the air, pressing his snout against the bars closest to Hiccup's outstretched hand. The dragon's glazed eyes struggled to focus on the young human, his roars replaced with a desperate whimpering. He no longer looked like a vicious beast who would pounce on the closest target and rip it to shreds at the soonest opportunity - he looked like a dog bereft of its beloved master.

Stoick, listening to his gut rather than his common sense, set Hiccup down on the floor of the truck and opened the cage door.

Toothless staggered out, heading straight for Hiccup. He collapsed beside the boy, shifting so that he lay partially on top of him, resting his head on the boy's chest for a moment before lifting his chin to lick the boy's neck.

Hiccup's arms had immediately gone around the dragon, and he now embraced his companion tightly, fingertips tracing patterns on the dragon's scales as he closed his eyes and whispered. The change in his breathing was immediate, as if the animal's mere presence was a physical relief. As Stoick watched, boy and dragon calmed down together, and within two minutes they were simply resting, looking exhausted but otherwise well.

"Does this remind you of anything?" Stoick murmured to one of his men. He had started filming again as soon as it was obvious that the dragon wouldn't harm anyone.

"What are you getting at, sir?"

"Service animals are allowed anywhere the general public is." If Toothless could qualify as a psychiatric service animal, it might solve at least some short-term problems... Stoick would need to ask Hiccup about the dragon's specific training, and get a doctor to evaluate-

"No one's going to accept a _dragon_ as a service animal," the man said warily, as if he couldn't believe his boss was even entertaining the idea.

Stoick sighed. "I wouldn't say 'no one,' but...well, I suppose it certainly is a long shot." Still, it was worth looking into.

Although the panic attack had passed, Hiccup now acted both terrified and furious whenever Stoick or any of the men tried to approach. "Okay, look," Stoick finally said, throwing up his hands and stepping back, "I won't get any closer. I'm just going to stand here and ask you some questions, Hiccup, all right?"

Hiccup stared at him, arms wrapped around his dragon, as Toothless fixed Stoick with a warning glare.

"I won't try to separate you again against your will. I'm sorry. I can see that you and Toothless care about each other very much."

"Don't take him away from me."

"I won't. The problem is that this puts me in a very difficult situation, Hiccup. We can't keep you in a dragon cage, that's out of the question, and I can't really think of anywhere you can go where Toothless would be allowed, too."

"You don't have to keep us if you don't want us. Just let us go; we'll find somewhere on our own."

"I can't do that either, Hiccup..." Stoick sighed. Only one possibility had occurred to him, but he really didn't like it. "Hiccup, is your dragon housebroken?"

"What?"

It took a minute for Stoick to finally make the boy understand what he was talking about.

"Oh. Yeah," Hiccup said. He nodded toward a smelly corner of the cage, which was at the opposite end of the nest-like mound they used as a bed. "We only use that one spot."

"So if we were to bring Toothless into a house, he wouldn't have any accidents on the floors, would he?"

"Just show us where to pee and stuff, and that's where we'll do it."

"Well, _you'd_ be using a toilet, but it's good to know that the dragon will do his business outside. What about chewing, or knocking things over? Or breathing fire?"

"What do you want?" Hiccup asked, apparently picking up on the fact that these questions were leading somewhere.

Stoick sighed again. "I want to know how badly your dragon will destroy my house if I let the two of you stay with me for a little while. Not very long," he was quick to add, "just until we can figure out what to do with you."

"Your...house?"

Stoick nodded, feeling unaccountably embarrassed.

Hiccup was looking strangely embarrassed as well. "...I've never been in a house," he burst out, "but whatever you need Toothless to do, he'll do it. I'll tell him what to do, okay? He'll do anything for me, just don't take me away from him. I'll do _anything_ , just please don't take him away from me. I'll do- anyth-" His breath was coming short again. Toothless pressed into him and started licking him again until Hiccup had calmed down enough to manage, "Please don't."

"All right, all right, Hiccup. Ssshh, it's all right."

Stoick didn't make them return to the cage, and was relieved when they were just as well-behaved as before. Boy and dragon sat close together, murmuring to each other. Of course dragons couldn't talk, but Toothless did respond to Hiccup's remarks with vocalizations that gave the impression of a conversation.

Luckily, Stoick already had a care bag on hand for Hiccup, so they didn't have to go shopping for clothes and necessities. They drove straight to Stoick's home, which was a large house in an upscale neighborhood. Hiccup's expression, when he got out of the truck and stared up at the house, was unreadable.

Stoick sent the truck away and reclaimed his car from the man who had driven it to and from the hospital for him. Left alone with the rescued pair, Stoick took a deep breath, then moved toward the door with his keys. "I'm not sure what to say, this is such an unusual foster situation... But we'll do our best and see what happens, eh?"

"This is grass, right?" Hiccup asked unexpectedly. He knelt down to touch Stoick's lawn, and Toothless immediately lowered his head to sniff at the same patch of grass Hiccup was stroking.

"You-?! Er, that is...yes."

"I've only ever seen it on TV," Hiccup said softly. "There's _so much_ of it...it's softer than the little bits that would grow at the circus..."

Not sure how to respond to this, Stoick finished unlocking the door and pushed it wide open. "Come on in. I called my housekeeper ahead of time and told her to leave early today, so we've got the place to ourselves for now. If Toothless needs to do his business, have him do it in the back." Stoick ushered them through the house to the backyard, then was shocked and quickly had to stop Hiccup from unfastening his pants. " _No_ , Hiccup, er- The yard is for the dragon. I'll show you the bathroom, all right?" A thought occurred to him. "Have you...ever used a toilet before...?"

"Yeah, when I had to shower and stuff for my performances," Hiccup said warily. "Are we going to be performing here, too? How often? Toothless needs a few days to rest in between, he doesn't like pretending to hurt each other and he gets upset-"

" _No_ , Hiccup." Stoick swallowed a curse, furious at anyone who would raise a child in such a way. "You won't be doing that ever again." Then he tried to explain what would have been obvious to a child who'd been raised like a human being instead of an animal. Hiccup kept a hand on the dragon's neck and said nothing.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: To put Stoick's problem in a little more perspective, it's virtually the equivalent of having to find a foster home for a child who's inseparable from a tiger. X'D

Trucks are "large, heavy motor vehicle[s] used for transporting goods, materials, or troops," and they vary greatly in size. The vehicle they'd use to transport a dragon would be big enough to do so, it's not like a pickup truck. (Just to be clear. ^^;)

 **They're called lots of different things, but a care bag is a backpack / duffel bag / etc. that's filled with clothing, toiletries, toys, school supplies, etc. for children who transition between foster homes. Donating items for care bags, or donating pre-assembled care bags, is an easy way that anyone can help foster children (as an alternative to directly fostering children or donating money. Not everyone is able to do those things, but most people are able to donate care bag items).**

Technically, Hiccup ought to have a potty mouth in this fic, due to living almost his entire life in environments where everyone probably cussed all the time, but I'm taking artistic license here. *sweatdrop*

I'm worried about Stoick seeming OOC in this fic... I was trying to keep a bit of his canon personality intact (such as his tendency to make assumptions and his natural inclination to be in control of his circumstances), while keeping in mind that in this AU, he lives in a much more civilized culture and has had a lot of training/education/experience/etc. in child psychology and the like. I dunno; there's nothing I can do to fix it if it's a problem, but you guys can still tell me if it works or not.

I usually don't bother to update already-posted stuff with edited versions until/unless I get around to editing the story for real, but so many things bugged me about chapter 1 of this fic that I made a lot of nit-picky edits and reposted it.

My research for this chapter:

Service dogs and Emotional Support Animals (ESAs)

-Service dogs (they pretty much have to be dogs, or miniature horses in certain cases) are specially trained and are considered to be "medical equipment" for their handlers, who would have some kind of physical and/or psychiatric disability, which is why the dogs are allowed in most places.

-ESAs don't have to be dogs and they don't have to be specially trained; as long as a licensed mental health professional writes an official letter stating that it would be beneficial to the patient to have an ESA, ESAs must be permitted in most housing and airline situations. However, they don't have the same status as service dogs, and you can't take them anywhere except your own home, an airplane, or where ordinary pets are permitted.

-Keep in mind that **Toothless is an entirely self-taught "service animal," so he might differ in some respects from true service animals!**

- **Please do not try to pass off your pet as a "service animal" unless it legitimately is one. Otherwise, it has a negative impact on disabled people who truly do need their service dogs to be recognized and respected as such.**

Panic attacks

-I looked up how they work and strategies for coping with them


	3. Chapter 3 - Clean

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 3 - Clean (rough draft)**

Hiccup did not regret being taken away and brought to this strange place. The one thing he cared about - the one thing that was precious to him, the one thing that made his life worth living - was still here at his side, scales warm under his hand, so he wasn't too afraid.

He was, however, frustrated and confused. The television that had played almost constantly in the backstage area of the circus, the only reason Hiccup had as much language development or cultural knowledge as he did, had been his only window into a different world, an unfathomable alien place he had never expected to see firsthand. Yet here he now was, and it was even more weird and confusing than it had been on that small, distant screen.

Apparently, Toothless was supposed to make his pee spot in the backyard, but for no reason that Hiccup could see, Hiccup himself was supposed to use the bathroom every day now - yet he was never going to do a performance again? Hiccup didn't understand, but he didn't argue, either. He would obey any command, do whatever this man wanted, if it meant Hiccup was allowed to stay by his dragon's side.

Hiccup watched without speaking as the man, who said to call him 'Stoick,' showed him how to work the faucets and where the clean towels were and what outfit Hiccup was supposed to put on when he was finished.

Then, thankfully, Stoick went away.

Alone at last, at _last_ , the first time during that entire crazy day when Hiccup didn't have humans looming over him, he immediately locked the door. Safe in his new cage, he collapsed, trying to muffle his wild cries so that Stoick wouldn't hear, wanting to bash his own head against the wall but knowing that the noise of it would summon the man back.

Hiccup pounded his head with his fist instead, nearly hysterical with a panic he couldn't explain. Toothless stuck his head into the crook of Hiccup's neck, blocking his reach before he could hit himself again, so he frantically clawed at himself, leaving scratches on his skin. Toothless firmly pressed him to the floor and then lay on him, licking at his face.

Hiccup trembled uncontrollably and gasped for breath, a little annoyed that he could no longer move enough to harm himself, but also feeling relieved to be held so tightly by the one person he trusted. The dragon's weight was reassuring, covering him like a shield, protecting him, reminding him that he wasn't alone. Hiccup started to breathe easier, and Toothless's tongue swiping across his cheek distracted him from the formless panic trying to take over his mind.

"Toothless," Hiccup whispered.

The dragon purred and gazed at him calmly, as if saying, _"Ssshh peace love safe."_

"Toothless-" Hiccup jerked his limbs, testing, but he was pinned and couldn't move. He knew that if his arms were free, he'd be unable to stop himself from striking himself or clawing at his own skin again, so he subsided. He lay quietly, waiting until Toothless sensed that he was truly calm, and was soothed when the dragon started licking him again.

 _"It's okay. Safe. I love you."_

"Love you, too," Hiccup whispered. He was able to wiggle his forearm loose enough to stroke the dragon's scales.

After a while, when he was completely relaxed and starting to get bored, he jerked again, trying to get free. "Get off, Toothless. I'm okay now."

Toothless got up, nosing at Hiccup and then maintaining a steady stance as Hiccup climbed to his feet, clutching at the dragon for support. Hiccup sighed, then took his clothes off and used the toilet like he was supposed to and started experimenting with the single bathtub faucet handle, which was designed much differently than the faucet handles at the circus.

Toothless had always _hated_ showers. He insisted that he could keep both of them clean without water, and especially without _soap_ , a substance which he found absolutely disgusting.

"Sorry, bud," Hiccup said sympathetically, scrubbing his fingers through his hair so the water could reach all of it. "You heard what Stoick said, I have to wash every day now. It's okay, I'm still here. I'll always be here."

Toothless had learned long ago that trying to lick Hiccup in the middle of a shower did little good, because the constantly running water would rinse his marks away. It was _awful_ if Hiccup happened to be using soap or shampoo at the time, because then Toothless would get a mouthful of the nasty stuff. Instead, the dragon tried to make do with extremely close proximity to his beloved human.

Hiccup had never in his life bothered to draw a shower curtain closed, because then it would get in Toothless's way, and Hiccup didn't quite understand what purpose shower curtains were supposed to serve, anyway. So water splashed all across the walls and floor as Toothless nudged him, paced restlessly, and shifted the front half of his body into the tub with Hiccup for as long as he could before he got too wet and too annoyed, and had to back out again.

At one point, Toothless determinedly crammed his entire body into the tub, which was much larger than the circus tub but still too small for a Night Fury. It was an uncomfortable fit, and there was no room left for Hiccup. Unconcerned, Hiccup simply sat on Toothless's back as he continued to bathe, sliding off again when Toothless couldn't take it anymore and had to climb back out.

Frustrated, Toothless buried his nose in Hiccup's dirty clothes, but the splashing water was gradually interfering with their comforting scent. Toothless had to move the clothes over by the bathroom door, out of range of the water. He came back and stuck his forepaws in the tub again, making an entreating whine as Hiccup leaned against his shoulder.

"Almost over, bud." Hiccup rinsed away the last of the soap, then turned off the water. Toothless wriggled eagerly, nearly knocking Hiccup over. "Whoa, _wait_! Toothless, stop! Let me get out of the tub first."

Once Hiccup was free, he let Toothless lick him. He wanted the dragon's scent on his skin almost as much as Toothless did; any kind of affirmation of the bond between them was comforting. "Okay. Now where did those new clothes go...?" Like everything else in the bathroom, the fresh clothes were very damp by now, but Hiccup put them on anyway. Then he puttered around, exploring this very interesting new cage and playing with Toothless, until Stoick's knock on the door startled him.

"Are you finished, Hiccup?"

"Y...Yes."

"All right, well, come on out. I ordered some pizza; let's eat it while it's hot."

When the door finally opened, Stoick stared at the soaked bathroom. "What _happened_ in here?!"

Jolted out of his good mood by the displeasure in Stoick's voice, Hiccup cringed and shrank back against Toothless, hoping that Stoick wasn't as strong as he looked.

Stoick didn't hit him, though. The man simply looked at him, didn't say whatever he'd been about to say, lost the angry look, and finally spoke in a low, measured voice. "Looks like quite a mess. Help me clean it up, please."

Hiccup wordlessly took the towel that was handed to him and imitated Stoick when the man started mopping up all the excess water. The boy was quivering with worry and apprehension, wondering if he was going to get beaten after the cleanup or not. Toothless, responding to his fear, hovered close to him protectively, but the worried attention he kept giving Hiccup seemed to be a good sign. He would have been growling at Stoick if the man truly was a threat.

Once the bathroom was reasonably dry again, Hiccup swallowed and licked his lips until he managed to apologize. "I'm sorry for making you mad."

"I'm not angry, I just... Did you even _use_ the shower curtain?"

Hiccup couldn't answer. His arms were clutching Toothless as he stared at the floor.

"It's all right, there's no harm done. ...Much," Stoick added, glancing ruefully at a small pile of books and magazines that were now water-damaged. "Just close the curtain the next time you shower, all right?"

Hiccup nodded, his heart aching for Toothless. It was bad enough having to wash himself while still giving the dragon access to him, but if he had to cut Toothless off-

"Hiccup, what's wrong?"

"I'm f-fine."

Hiccup flinched when Stoick very gently nudged his chin up, forcing him to meet the man's eyes. Stoick just looked confused and sad now, not angry at all. "Hiccup, I'm not going to understand what's wrong unless you talk to me. You're not in trouble, nothing bad is going to happen. Just tell me why you're upset, please."

"...T...Toothless..." Stoick waited patiently for him to continue, which gave him a little more courage. Hiccup took a deep breath. "Toothless gets scared when I wash all his smells off me. I-If I...if I close the shower curtain, he can't even reach me, he'll be even _more_ scared and upset, he'll probably pull the whole thing down, and I...and I-"

"Why don't you try a bath instead of a shower next time?"

Hiccup blinked in confusion. "Huh?"

"You don't have to use a curtain for that. I'll show you how to draw a bath tomorrow. For now, how about that pizza, eh?"

In the kitchen, Hiccup stopped and looked at the tall stack of pizza boxes. (Stoick could eat at least one and a half full pizzas for a single meal, and wasn't sure how much the boy would want, and had figured it was better to order too much than not enough.) "Did you eat yours already?" Hiccup asked uncertainly.

Stoick blinked. Apparently the boy had never learned that people who ate a meal together typically ate _together_. "Er, not yet."

"Oh." Hiccup made a brief hand signal, then caressed the dragon's head when Toothless made a pleading whine in response. "Can we wait in a different room?"

"Wait for...what?" Stoick said in confusion.

Hiccup gave him an odd look. "Do I have to make Toothless watch? It's better if I distract him."

"Watch _what_? What do you think is happening here, Hiccup?"

Hiccup seemed to shrink, backing into Toothless with his eyes on the floor and his shoulders hunched. Toothless looked at him in concern.

"Hiccup," Stoick said gently, "listen to me. You had a very...unusual upbringing. I'm sure there are many things I think are normal that seem strange to you, and vice versa. It's all right. You'll learn, and you'll make some mistakes along the way, and that's _all right_. Please tell me what's bothering you so we can sort it out."

Hiccup's hand on the dragon was trembling, and Toothless stuck his head under the boy's arm to comfort him. Hiccup sucked in a deep breath. "We're hungry," he said in a low voice. "We'll eat whatever you feed us...but it's hard for Toothless to watch people eating when he can't. Please let me take him somewhere else until you're ready to let me feed him." His own stomach growled at that moment.

"...Hiccup, I don't quite understand what your expectations are, but _my_ expectations are that you and I will sit down right now and start eating this pizza. I'm actually not sure what Night Furies eat, so I ordered a delivery of beef, pork, chicken, and fish. I was hoping you could tell me what Toothless likes best."

Hiccup stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Do dragons eat their meat raw or cooked?"

"...Th-The fish, he, please give, can I please have some fish? Please?"

"Of course. It's all right, Hiccup."

Once the fish had been placed before Toothless in a huge bucket, the delighted dragon buried his face in it, munching away happily. Hiccup looked like he was about to pull some fish out of the bucket for himself, so Stoick firmly but gently took the boy by the shoulders, steered him into a chair, and asked him which kind of pizza he liked best. Hiccup wouldn't give him a straight answer, so Stoick finally just took one slice of each type and piled them all on a plate in front of Hiccup. Hiccup stared at the food with that wide-eyed look again.

"Eat up. You can have as much as you want, there's plenty. And if we run out of pizza, I've got some canned food in the pantry that we can warm up."

"All of this is for _me_?!" Hiccup watched Stoick closely and didn't start to eat until Stoick did. Then he bolted down the first slice, but slowed down significantly on the second, and was only able to get halfway through it before he leaned back in his chair, looking unwell.

"Are you feeling all right, Hiccup?"

"I'm fine." Hiccup slipped out of his chair and went to curl up on the floor beside Toothless. Toothless turned away for a minute to lick Hiccup, and to set one or two limbs over the boy like an embrace and curl his tail around him. Then he went back to eating until he'd finished every fish in the bucket. Looking sated, the dragon lay his head down next to Hiccup's and exhaled a contented sigh.

They looked like they were prepared to fall asleep right there on the floor. "Hiccup," Stoick said, "get up, let me show you where the bedroom is. Oh, but first let me get some blankets for Toothless."

Stoick led them to one of the guest rooms, where he let Hiccup make up a nest for Toothless to the dragon's liking. Stoick took the opportunity to remove anything too breakable or valuable to risk leaving in the same room as a dragon.

When he returned, he found the boys curled up together on the blankets on the floor. Stoick suddenly realized that Hiccup had never had any intention of using the bed. "Er...Hiccup...I, ah, I suppose you can sleep with Toothless if you _want_ to, but...the bed is for you, you know." He gestured at it.

"We're supposed to sleep on there?"

"I mean, not _Toothless_. There will be no dragons sleeping on any beds in this house. But if _you_ would like to sleep on the bed, of course you are certainly welcome to."

"Please let me stay with Toothless," Hiccup begged.

"All right, all right, lad! You can sleep with him if you want. I'm just telling you that as long as the dragon stays on the floor, you can sleep on the bed if you'd like."

"..."

"All right, well...good night. I'll be in my office for a few hours, and my bedroom is right down the hall. Don't be afraid to interrupt me or wake me up if you need anything." Stoick stood there awkwardly for a moment, then turned around and left.

o.o.o.o.o

It was horribly uncomfortable. The house was so cold and unsettlingly _quiet_ , and the nest of blankets had a terrible chemical smell, like perfume. Hiccup pushed some of them away, but he was so cold that he had to keep one for warmth, and the carpet smelled bad, anyway.

Toothless was disturbed by the lack of proper scent on his boy. The dragon spent a long time bathing Hiccup, covering him with good organic meaningful scents until Toothless had finally soothed himself enough to fall asleep.

Hiccup remained awake for much longer, huddled into Toothless as his mind raced with plans and anxieties and unhappiness. He missed the cage he was used to sleeping in, with its sturdy metal bars to protect him, the worn blankets that smelled comfortingly of dragon and sweat and dirt, the warmth that didn't come at the cost of this fake chemical flower smell, and the noises of the TV and of other people constantly in the background. (The sleek flat screen in the guest room looked so different than the battered little box at the circus that Hiccup didn't even realize it was a television, and it hadn't occurred to Stoick to tell him.)

Hiccup missed his home, but he was still with Toothless, and they were safe for now, and they had completely full bellies for the first time since either of them could remember. It was good enough. Hiccup buried his face in the dragon's hide and closed his eyes until he fell asleep.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I found out after posting the previous chapter that there's a difference between an animal trainer, an animal handler, and an animal presenter. A trainer is someone who trains the animal to do (or not do) specific things, a handler is someone who basically takes care of the animal, and a presenter is whoever performs with the animal in front of an audience. Depending on the people and circumstances involved, there can be some overlap between two or three of the roles, but the roles themselves are distinct from each other.

In this fic, Hiccup is all three for Toothless (he is the dragon's primary caretaker, trainer, and performance partner), but that's not always the case in real life, especially in bigger circuses where jobs are more compartmentalized.


	4. Chapter 4 - Interview, part 1

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 4 - Interview, part 1 (rough draft)**

 **A/N: This is Eret Senior, NOT Junior.**

 **WARNING for references to physical and sexual child abuse in this two-part chapter.**

o.o.o

Stoick had a lot to do before he went to bed. In addition to working on case-related paperwork and coordinating multiple investigations, he also had to make arrangements with a therapist and a tutor for Hiccup who could make home visits and would be willing to work around the dragon. He also had to set up regular food deliveries for Toothless, look up how to obtain a permit for housing a dangerous exotic animal in his home, and warn his personal assistant, housekeeper, and groundskeeper about Toothless before they showed up for work in the morning.

The assistant and the groundskeeper both refused to set foot on his property until the dragon was gone. Stoick informed Stefani that she could work long-distance, and told Armando that he could freelance elsewhere for as long as Toothless remained in Stoick's care.

Marta was the only one who arrived as usual the next morning. She cringed and shivered at the stove as Toothless, ignoring her, devoured his breakfast at the opposite end of the kitchen. Hiccup sat in the chair closest to his dragon, working through a plate of eggs and toast at a decreasing pace, and Stoick distractedly ate his own breakfast as he skimmed through piles of papers. He looked up when he noticed that the boys had finished eating and were casually wrestling on the kitchen floor.

"Hiccup, go brush your teeth," Stoick said.

Hiccup stared at him. "I just brushed my teeth last night. You want me to do it again?"

Stoick closed his eyes briefly. "You're supposed to brush your teeth at least twice a day." A thought occurred to him. "Have you ever been to a dentist?"

"No..."

"Come here, please." Then, as Hiccup trudged toward him very slowly and reluctantly, "I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to look at your teeth for a minute. I won't even touch you. Will you please open your mouth?"

Hiccup obeyed uneasily, one hand clutching Toothless.

Stoick squinted at the boy's teeth. "Not as bad as I was afraid of... How often did you brush your teeth at the circus?"

"Most days. Bludvist said I had to brush them so they wouldn't rot. My teeth have to look nice when I smile."

"...When you smiled for the customers, you mean?"

"Yeah. But you said- Are we going to be performing again after all?"

Stoick's fists clenched. " _No_ , Hiccup. You need to brush your teeth twice a day so that they'll be healthy. For your own health, not to suit anyone else's needs." He sighed. "We need to get you to a dentist at some point, but..." He glanced at Toothless. A dentist visit would have to wait until the boy and the dragon could tolerate being separate from one another for long enough. "Please just go brush your teeth, Hiccup."

Hiccup nodded and left, the dragon at his side.

As soon as they were gone, Marta burst out, "What is this?! This boy, he plays with _dragon_ like it is pet, you let _dragon_ claw at him and lick him, what is this?! What is this, Mr. Vast?!"

"It's all right, Marta," Stoick said soothingly. "At this point, it would do more harm than good to tear him away from the dragon."

Since Stoick was unable to leave Hiccup in anyone else's care under the current circumstances, he was going to have to work from home for an indefinite period of time. He moved the essentials from his office to the living room so that he would be able to keep a better eye on the boys.

After Hiccup had finished being fed, brushed, dressed, and combed, he was called back into the living room. Stoick eyed him critically. "You're going to need a haircut at some point, too."

"Y...You mean, cut my hair?"

He looked so nervous at the prospect that Stoick said soothingly, "It's not urgent, we can wait. But your hair is a bit long and very, er, uneven. How would you feel about Marta cutting your hair?"

"It's not urgent?" Hiccup said desperately, clutching Toothless. "C-Can we wait? I...I like my hair this way, it-"

"We don't have to cut your hair if you don't want to," Stoick assured him. "There are more important things to be done first." He took a deep breath. "Sit down, Hiccup. Anywhere you like- Er, but Toothless stays on the floor, please."

Hiccup settled on the floor next to his dragon, leaning back against the couch.

Stoick cleared his throat. "Hiccup, I need to interview you. I'm going to have to ask you some very personal questions that you might not want to answer. And if I have your permission, I'd like to film this interview. How do you feel about all this?"

Hiccup said nothing, though he clutched at Toothless for reassurance. The dragon licked him briefly and exhaled into his hair.

"This is very important, Hiccup. Drago Bludvist and Eret Hunter and their men are guilty of many crimes. They subjected you and the other children to abuse, neglect, and inappropriate risk. We want to prosecute them for these crimes, but we need to hear from each of you directly about what you experienced while you were at that circus, and any other information that might help us investigate and build our case. Will you help us, Hiccup? Will you answer my questions as honestly as possible?"

"...Do I have to answer all of them?" Hiccup asked in a low voice.

"At least try. I know this is going to be very difficult for you, and you will probably be asked these same questions many times, by all sorts of different people. At least listen to my questions, and answer them if you're able to. All right, Hiccup?"

"I'll try."

"Good." Stoick got permission from Hiccup to start filming the interview. "Now, then. To start off with, what is your real name?"

The boy gave him a strange look. "I told you. My name is Hiccup."

"...Yes, you've given your name as 'Hiccup,' but surely that's not your real name. What were you called before you came to the circus?"

Hiccup stared at him, wide-eyed.

Stoick drew in a breath, his heart aching. "Hiccup, do you remember your real name?"

"My...my name is Hiccup," Hiccup said, sounding anxious and uncertain.

"All right. All right, well, we'll move on to the next question for now. How old are you?"

"I don't know."

"How old do you think you are?"

"I don't know... Twenty, I think."

"If I were to guess, I'd say you look about twelve."

"Oh...maybe I'm twelve." He said it as if he genuinely had no idea how old he was, and was simply going along with whatever Stoick said.

"How old were you when you came to the circus?"

"I don't know."

"If you were to guess, how old do you think you might have been?"

"I don't know...I was little."

"Were you old enough to walk?"

"Yes."

"Could you talk?"

"Y...Yes. Yeah, I could talk some."

"Good. Do you remember anything about the date when you arrived? Even just part of the date, or perhaps a holiday?"

"It was Christmas...I remember that, it was Christmas..."

President Hiiro Yui had been assassinated around Christmas eight years ago, when Hiccup would have been a young child. "Do you remember anyone talking about an assassination when you first came to the circus?" Stoick tried.

"Yeah. That guy, Hero Yooey, he was on TV a lot. They stopped talking about him after a while, though."

"News stories come and go, even about something as important as an assassination. You're sure they were talking about President Yui on TV at the _circus_ , not wherever you came from before?"

Hiccup paused a moment, as if something unexpected had occurred to him. Then he lightly knocked his fist against his own head and said, "There was a TV at the circus. It played all the time, all day and night most of the time, with people talking and talking and talking on it, or singing and stuff. I know it was that TV that talked about Hiiro Yui being assassinated."

If Hiccup was twelve now, and if he really had arrived at the circus around the time of the Yui assassination, that would mean the boy had been only four years old then. "Can you tell me where you lived before you came to the circus?"

Hiccup didn't answer for a long time. Toothless whined in concern and nosed at him.

"Do you remember your parents, Hiccup?" Stoick asked gently.

"...There was a woman," Hiccup finally whispered. "She...she was..."

"Was she your mother?"

"Yes...I think so- I hate her," Hiccup suddenly burst out. "I hate her, I hope she's _dead_."

"...What do you remember about her?" Stoick finally said.

"I don't want to think about her," Hiccup snapped. "Ask me something different."

"All right... Well, I'm trying to determine how and when you came to the circus. Is there anything you can tell me that might be a clue?"

"I was little...Toothless was little, he was just a baby..." Hiccup shivered.

"Can you tell me how you first met Toothless?" Stoick thought that Hiccup might be more inclined to talk about his beloved dragon, but the boy continued to clam up.

"Toothless...h-he was little, he was a baby- We're _friends_. We're friends and I love him and he _loves me_ and keeps me safe, he _protects_ me!"

"All right, all right, Hiccup, yes, I know. I can see how much you care about each other."

"He was just a baby," Hiccup whimpered. "He didn't hurt me."

"Have you always been his trainer, or did someone else work with him before you did?" Stoick asked, trying to steer the line of questioning away from whatever was upsetting Hiccup.

"He...me, it was...always the two of us...the _two of us_ , they can't take us away from each other..."

"Has anyone else trained Toothless?"

"No."

"How did you learn to train him using treats and commands?"

"Bludvist never _listened_ , I tried to _tell_ him that Toothless will do whatever you want if he loves you, but he was always hitting me and hitting me, I hate him _so much_ there was _nothing I could do_ , sometimes he'd be mad enough to whip Toothless but it's not fair it's not _right_ to beat Toothless because he never does anything wrong-!"

"Hiccup! Hiccup! Stop, calm down, lad. I don't understand what you're saying."

Hiccup was breathing hard, his hands clenched into fists, looking angry and distant.

"Hiccup, we were watching the circus for a few days. We saw you go into the dressing rooms right before a performance, you came out in that virgin sacrifice getup. We also saw you leave sometimes to work with Toothless in the ring. But you spent the rest of the time in Toothless's cage, even sleeping and eating with him. Was that typical?"

"Was that...what?"

"Normal. Was that normal, for you to spend so much time in the dragon's cage?"

"Yeah...Toothless and I stay _together_."

"...All right, now please describe a typical day. When you weren't performing, what did you do? What time did you wake up, what did you eat?"

Hiccup explained how he and Toothless would usually sleep until they were woken by either bright sunlight or by a bucket of fish being thrown into the cage. Toothless would eat the fish raw; Hiccup would usually have Toothless burn his share of the fish before he ate it.

"Did you ever go to a doctor, Hiccup?"

"I don't really... A doctor? _Going_ to- What?"

Stoick's heart ached. "You said that sometimes you didn't feel well, but were you ever seriously ill, or badly injured?"

"A few times."

"Who took care of you?"

"Toothless mostly."

"I mean, did any human being ever take care of you when you were sick or injured?"

"A few times, I guess... Whenever I started throwing up too much or if I couldn't move because I was too hot and my stomach hurt, sometimes they told me to swallow these little 'pill' things. I didn't want to, they tasted so nasty, but they said they'd beat Toothless if I didn't, and I guess sometimes the nasty things made me feel better. _Sometimes_. A few times they made it worse.

"Or there was a man sometimes - different men, they kept changing, Bludvist and Hunter would pay them to fix people if they couldn't work. That's a doctor, right? Or, they wouldn't _always_ fix them, sometimes they'd make things worse... It happened once with Sophia, and once with Ruby."

"Who is Sophia?"

"One of the harem women. She's been gone for a while."

"I see..."

"They screamed and screamed so much, trying to get everyone to go away, but no one listened to them and they made them fall asleep. I don't know what they did to them when they were asleep, but afterward they cried so much and wouldn't work until Hunter made them. When it happened to Ruby, Seth was really upset, too. He told me they took her baby away, but I never saw a baby."

"Those would have been forced abortions," Stoick said softly. "Ruby told us about hers; I didn't realize it had happened to one of the women as well." He sighed heavily. "This is your interview, though, so we should be talking about you."

"I don't want to talk about me," Hiccup grumbled.

"Do you need to take a break?"

"Noooooo," Hiccup said, sounding both annoyed and resigned. "I want a break _forever_ , but you won't give me a break _forever_ , only for a tiny bit, so I don't want one. I want to get this over with."

"All right. You said a doctor would tend to you if you were too sick to work, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Did Toothless let them approach you?"

Hiccup made a face and started to have trouble breathing, though Toothless managed to calm him down before the attack got too bad.

"Can you tell me, Hiccup?" Stoick asked gently.

"They'd...they'd tranq Toothless first, because he'd snarl at them and try to protect me, but at least they wouldn't take me away from him...they'd come in the cage and touch me with things and make me eat things. Sometimes I got better right afterward; other times it took a long time.

"One time- It was when Tiana tore up my arm...she's one of the tigers we had. Toothless had licked it clean and usually he can make it stop hurting, but this time it still hurt _inside_ my arm, and then that man-" Tears started to slip down his face as he spoke. "They tranqed Toothless and came in the cage and tied me to the bars so I couldn't fight back anymore. It was _awful_. I tried to bite them, so they hit me and put a rope around my neck; it choked me if I tried to move my head. He hurt me, he poured this stuff on my arm that stung, and then he _hurt_ my arm so bad and wrapped it up so I could barely move it. Bludvist wouldn't let me take the wrapping off for weeks, I had to do a lot of stuff with just one arm."

"Which arm was it?"

"This one."

"That's the one that was fractured. That might have been the time you fractured your arm; he was probably setting the bone so it would heal straight."

"Oh...really?"

"Probably. But they should never have tied you down, Hiccup. They should have explained things to you and been gentle with you," Stoick said through gritted teeth, wishing he could literally get his hands on all the people who had hurt or frightened these children, wishing he lived in some more savage time where he wouldn't be prosecuted for punishing them the way they deserved. He tried his best to inject more clinical detachment into his voice as he changed the subject. "What about your diet, Hiccup? Did you ever eat anything besides fish?"

"Sometimes. Sometimes if they had leftover food, they'd throw it in at me; or if I got sick, they'd make me eat different things until I got better. Sometimes they'd give me things if I made Toothless do tricks for them. Sometimes they _lied_ and just walked away without giving me anything, but sometimes they'd give me what they promised. Sometimes, if Seth was sad or mad or bored and he came to talk to me for a long time, he'd give me something to eat. Or if there was anything I wanted from the kitchen, Seth would get it for me if I paid him."

"Paid him? What did you pay him with?"

"Like, he'd tell me or Toothless to do something so he could take a picture, or he said that when he gave the signal, I should make Toothless threaten someone when they walked by, or stuff like that. There wasn't much I could do to pay for things, but I think sometimes he did things just because he liked me."

Hiccup was quiet a moment. "You know, a week or two before you guys came, it was real late when everyone was asleep. I woke up because Seth had stolen the keys again so he could come into the cage. He went straight for Toothless and started crying...he's done that a couple of times before, too, like he thinks Toothless will comfort him the way he comforts me." Hiccup paused. "Well, Toothless _does_ comfort him, but only because he feels sorry for him. When that happens, I go lay on Seth's other side so he'll feel better and go away. We did that that night." Hiccup paused again, thinking. "We never talked. He never said anything, so I didn't say anything either, but the next day he'd be better and he'd come bring a treat for Toothless. That's like being paid, right? Even if you don't have money, you can still pay for things or get paid for doing things, right?"

They talked for a while, and it was a few minutes before Stoick realized that he'd gotten distracted away from his actual purpose. He cleared his throat and resumed the interview, asking about Drago Bludvist. Hiccup replied that on most days, he and Toothless would get dragged out of their cage for training with the man.

"Did he hit you, Hiccup?" Stoick asked, already knowing the answer.

"Yes."

"What did he hit you with?"

"A stick. Sometimes a whip. He'd hit me if I made a mistake or said something he didn't like." Hiccup's fists were clenched again. "It wasn't _fair_! It wasn't fair, he hit me when I made him mad but he'd hit me if _Toothless_ made him mad, too. He knew he could get Toothless to do whatever he wanted if he punished me instead, but I hated it HATED it when he'd hit me even when Toothless was good, Toothless would see him hurting me and it would hurt _him_ too but he didn't know what to do because he _hadn't done anything wrong_ , and I couldn't explain to him and he'd cry and wonder what he did wrong and I didn't know how to tell him, I didn't know how to tell him that it's _not his fault_ -!"

"Sshh, Hiccup, sshh. It's all right, you're safe now, you and Toothless are safe."

Hiccup was sobbing into Toothless's neck as the dragon nuzzled him and crooned to him. Stoick moved close to lay a hand on the boy's head, but Hiccup screamed at him to stay away.

"All right! All right, Hiccup, I won't touch you. I think it's time to take a break." Stoick called for Marta to bring snacks. She actually had some already prepared, and was standing at the threshold watching the suffering boy with a heartbroken look on her face, but she wouldn't go near the dragon. Stoick brought the food to Hiccup instead.

Hiccup nibbled at a cookie and Toothless wolfed down about five in one gulp before Stoick managed to yank the plate away.

"Is sugar bad for dragons?!" Stoick exclaimed, worried about an endangered animal falling ill or dying while under his care, due to being fed poison. "Hiccup, will sugar make him sick?!"

"No," Hiccup mumbled. He sat up. "No more sugar," he ordered sternly. "No cranky and sleepy for you, and you _know_ what it does to your fire. No sweets, Toothless."

The dragon whined at him, then laid his head back in Hiccup's lap.

"Hiccup?" Stoick finally ventured. "There are some more questions I need to ask you."

Hiccup stiffened.

"Do you think you'll be able to keep going, maybe this afternoon if not now? Or do you want to wait until tomorrow?"

"Wh...What questions?! Tell me what your questions are and _I'll_ decide if I'll answer them!"

"Just two more things for now. One, were you ever hurt while you were working with Toothless-"

"NO! Toothless would never hurt me, NEVER!"

"Maybe...maybe not on purpose, Hiccup, but were there ever any accidents? Did he ever-?"

Hiccup seized the ceramic cookie plate and flung it at Stoick. The man dodged, and the plate hit a window with a loud bang, leaving a crack in the glass. Man, boy, and dragon all stared at the damaged window and broken plate for a minute. Then Hiccup leaped to his feet and ran.

"Hiccup!" Stoick shouted. He chased after them, wondering why they fled into the bathroom. Hiccup tried to slam the door shut, but Stoick managed to catch it before it could close.

"Toothless, Guard Me!" Hiccup screamed. "Guard Me!" Toothless immediately planted himself in front of the boy and snarled, wings spread as far as they had room for.

Stoick froze and raised his hands. "Hiccup," he said in a very quiet voice, "Hiccup, I'm not going to hurt you. Please call him off."

"I didn't mean to," Hiccup said shrilly. "I'm sorry, the window, I, I, please don't punish me where Toothless can see. Please, I'll tell him to stay in here and you can punish me outside, please don't let him see-"

"Hiccup, _stop_ ," Stoick ordered. Toothless heard in Stoick's voice the anger at Hiccup's abusers, and mistook it for anger at Hiccup. The dragon roared and feinted a lunge, clearly warning Stoick to back off. "Ssshh ssshh ssshh, no, calm down, dragon. Hiccup, please call him off-"

Hiccup had collapsed by now, clutching his head as he curled up on the ground and cried.

Stoick took a step back and spoke as softly and calmly as he could. "Hiccup, please. I'm not going to hurt you. As long as I have any say in the matter, no one will ever hurt you again."

After what felt like an endless time of Toothless standing guard and Stoick waiting and waiting and waiting, the dragon finally backed away and began to nose at Hiccup, whining and warbling. Hiccup's arms rose to encircle the dragon's neck. Toothless lay down with a couple of limbs draped over the boy and let Hiccup bury his face in his scales.

When Hiccup was finally quiet, Stoick spoke softly again. "I'm sorry that I have to ask you things that are painful for you to answer. I know that you were frightened and upset, but there are more appropriate ways to express your feelings than throwing things or running away.

"I need for you to go back into the living room and pick up all the pieces of that plate. You will apologize to Marta for breaking one of the dishes. Then you will stay shut in your room for an hour, and you're not allowed to turn on the TV during that time." Stoick knew that separating Hiccup from Toothless was out of the question, so grounding him together with his dearest companion was a pretty weak punishment. However, it was the only thing Stoick could think of; his nerves were still rattled from being directly threatened by a dragon. "I'm not going to hit you, Hiccup. I will _never_ hit you, do you understand me?"

Hiccup slowly raised his head. "I'm sorry for throwing the plate at you," he whispered.

"The next time you're upset like that, tell me that you need a break. I'll give you a chance to calm down and talk out what you're feeling, all right? Now come along."

Stoick was a little exasperated to find that Marta had already cleaned up the mess, so he gave her instructions to just leave the thrown items where they were if such an incident happened again. After Hiccup had apologized to her (and gotten mothered a bit in response), Stoick led the boys back to their guest room, ushered them inside, told them they were to stay there until he came to get them, then shut the door. When he returned exactly one hour later, he found them asleep on the floor, curled close into each other.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: **Again, this is Eret Sr., NOT Jr. It's also not my headcanon personality for Eret Sr.; I just wrote him like this for this particular story because it was useful. I'm planning to write him somewhat differently in other stories like _Hybrid_.**

For this chapter, I looked up permits or licenses to keep dangerous exotic pets. Basically, it varies a lot depending on the location. We'll just say that it's legal to get an exotic pet permit/license wherever Stoick lives (though it complicates things a lot that Stoick had to bring Toothless into his care before actually getting the permit, and the whole mess with Toothless being almost literally attached at the hip to a human minor and the fact that they are dependent on each other for emotional health reasons, etc.)

The Hiiro Yui assassination is from _Gundam Wing_.

For the record, Hiccup in this AU has a very underdeveloped sense of privacy, due to how he was raised. There are things people might watch or record him doing that would embarrass an ordinary person, but which don't bother Hiccup at all (even in cases when it probably should).

There are some...more unpleasant things that Seth made Hiccup do as 'payment,' but in the end, I decided against writing them... I like Seth a lot and didn't want to tarnish his image, but he _did_ get messed up because of what was done to him, and his morals would have been somewhat skewed. :/ I also didn't want to write about Hiccup having to deal with the aftereffects, so I'm just not going to mention it onscreen.

I keep getting more ideas and adding them to chapter 8, so I finally split it into two chapters. So this entire fic (including the epilogue) is now 11 chapters instead of 10.


	5. Chapter 5 - Interview, part 2

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 5 - Interview, part 2 (rough draft)**

 **A/N: WARNING for references to physical and sexual child abuse in this two-part chapter.**

o.o.o

The boys went to play in the backyard both before and after lunch. Stoick filmed a lot of it, watching in fascination as Hiccup put Toothless through his paces, and as the two horseplayed and wrestled.

Even when Toothless was mock-snarling and pawing at the boy and grabbing him in his jaws, Stoick noted that the dragon was very careful. It was more obvious here in person than it had been on the surveillance feeds - despite the great difference in size and strength, Toothless never left a scratch on Hiccup. He apparently had the ability to retract all his teeth, which he did every time he bit the boy, so that it was only harmless gums which closed on Hiccup's flesh. It made sense now why Hiccup had never cried out in pain or showed signs of injury when the men watching the feeds thought he was being mauled.

The training was very different but just as fascinating. In addition to a wide range of tricks that would have been used during performances, there were also more practical commands.

"Guard Me" seemed to mean that Toothless was to protect Hiccup while avoiding casualties if possible. "Fury Mode" called for unbridled aggression - Stoick winced at the patches of burnt grass now marring his beautiful lawn; Armando would have his work cut out for him when he came back. "Hurt Mode" prompted the dragon to cringe and whimper, acting like he was injured and terrified. In "Safe Mode," he acted as cute and friendly as a dog. There was also "Standby," which kept the dragon alert but neutral at Hiccup's side, and "Hush," which seemed meant to calm Toothless when he sensed a threat.

"That's very impressive," Stoick remarked, still filming. "You taught him _all_ of that?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever see the other animals being trained?"

"Yeah, Dominic was the animal trainer. But he hated Toothless, so he didn't bother us too much."

"Dominic would train the lions and tigers with treats?" Stoick said, his tone carefully conversational.

Hiccup gave a bark of laughter, if the suggestion was ridiculous. "He'd hurt them if they disobeyed, and he wouldn't hurt them if they did. They hated him, too."

"You never hit Toothless, though."

" _No_! I'd _never_ hurt Toothless!"

"Looks like you have a much better way of getting Toothless to do what you want."

"Duh! If you give Toothless some food for doing something, he'll _want_ to do it."

"What happens if you don't have any food to offer him?" Stoick asked, curious about how the boy would word his response.

"I tell Toothless he can't tell me he loves me until he does what I ask. That's the only way I could get him to attack me in the ring, to make it look real. I had to give him soooooo much love after every performance, or else he'd refuse to do it at the next rehearsal and then we'd get whipped." Hiccup threw himself at the dragon. "Hey, you! I love you!"

Toothless made a happy croaking noise and allowed himself to topple over on his side.

"Hey, you~" Hiccup sing-songed, apparently imitating how he'd praised the dragon after performances. "Hey, Toothless~ Hey! Good job, right? We did a _good_ job, yes, Bludvist should be happy, lots of money in his pocket tonight~ Maybe he'll give us some extra fish, yeah? Yeah~?" He scrubbed his hands all over the dragon's chest and belly and side. Toothless squirmed in pleasure until he couldn't take it anymore and flopped upright, pinning Hiccup under his foreleg. He started vigorously licking Hiccup's face and neck as the boy continued to stroke and croon at him.

"I see," Stoick murmured. He smiled a little. "I still can't get over the fact that that's a _dragon_ who's got his claws and teeth all over you... You're very brave, Hiccup."

"Why?"

o.o.o.o.o

The next morning, Marta served Hiccup a light meal consisting mostly of fish, which he seemed much more pleased with than the previous breakfast. After he ate, Stoick settled him in the living room again. Hiccup leaned against Toothless, obviously not looking forward to what was coming.

"So, Hiccup... I suppose you've guessed that I need to continue interviewing you today."

"What do you want?" Hiccup asked wearily.

"There are some things I'd like to have some clarification on, but for now, let's tackle the hardest part. I need to ask you about the abuse, Hiccup. We know that you were harmed during your time at the circus, but we don't know the full extent of it."

Hiccup was wordlessly stroking his dragon's scales, as Toothless gazed at him with a worried look.

"Can you tell me about all the people who hurt you, Hiccup? Their names if you know them, and how they hurt you, and how often. Do you think you'll be able to talk about that?"

"..."

"You've already told me that you were physically beaten by Bludvist on a regular basis."

"Yes," Hiccup mumbled.

"Was he the only one who ever hurt you?"

"...No."

"Who were the others? Do you know their names?"

"...Zeke hit me a few times, if I got too close to him when he was drunk...he'd hit anyone smaller than him...he's been gone for a long time, though. Dominic would whip me sometimes when we were rehearsing with the other animals, just to be mean. Grott hit me a couple of times, he was drunk, too - he'd grab me when I was in my dress and then he'd remember I'm not a girl and get mad at me. Sasheena tried to hurt me once...she stole the key and came into the cage and started kissing me and biting me and sticking her hands in my clothes. Toothless chased her off before she could hurt me, though, so I don't know if that counts."

Which sort of led to the next question. "Were you ever sexually abused?"

"What?" He didn't understand the term, or the word 'rape,' and Stoick had to explain in unpleasant detail. Hiccup's face seemed to drain of color, and his fingers gripped Toothless so hard that the dragon whined softly. "N-No. No."

"All the other minors at that place were forced into prostitution when they weren't performing. Ruby and Seth have been open with us about it. Sasheena hasn't been cooperative and we haven't been able to get Kieran to say a word, the poor lad - but we already have evidence that they were both being sexually abused as well. ...It wouldn't surprise us if you'd been victimized in that way, too."

"...T...Toothless...protects me...he won't let anyone...hurt me..."

"What if someone were to overpower Toothless?" Stoick asked quietly. "What if someone were to tranquilize him so that he couldn't protect you? Did anyone ever do that, Hiccup?"

Hiccup gasped, then continued fighting for air as if he couldn't breathe. Toothless pressed his head against the boy's chest, pinning him to the front of the couch, and Hiccup's arms wrapped tightly around the dragon, fingertips tracing patterns over the black scales.

"Don't try to fight it, Hiccup," Stoick murmured. "Just let the feelings come. You're experiencing a panic attack right now, your body is reacting to the trauma in your memories." He continued to talk for a while in a calm, measured voice, giving Hiccup explanations to focus on. "You're afraid, but it's all right, you're not in danger. You're safe here, no one is going to hurt you. You can take as long as you need to ride it out. You feel like you can't breathe, but that's just your mind playing tricks on you; you still have the physical ability to breathe just as well as ever. Nothing bad is going to happen to you right now, you are safe here in this house with your best friend at your side."

Hiccup sat staring at the ceiling, with Toothless leaning on him and licking at his skin. When he seemed to have gotten over the worst of it, Hiccup closed his eyes and whispered haltingly, "They shot him. They _shot him_...he fell asleep, they had the key, I couldn't stop them. I tried, but I _couldn't_. I was too small and they were so strong, Toothless was gone; he _left_ me, they...they..."

He cried into the dragon's neck for a while. "I felt like I was dead," he sobbed when he could speak again. "It hurt _so much_ and they threw me back in the cage and I couldn't move, I kept thinking I was dead but I _wouldn't die_...Toothless tried to take care of me...he woke up and he knew they'd hurt me and he tried to take care of me, but I just wanted to die and I _wouldn't die_..."

After a long time, he spoke again in a low, dull voice. "I wouldn't get up when Bludvist called me. He hit me but I didn't care, it hurt but I didn't care I wanted to die, but Toothless attacked him and he started beating Toothless and I...couldn't...let him...hurt Toothless...I tried to get up but it _hurt_ , he...he knew...he knew what they did to me..."

Hiccup drew in a shaky breath, anger finally bringing some life back into his tone. "He got _so mad_ at them for wasting tranq shots." Still clutching Toothless, Hiccup looked directly at Stoick for the first time that day, his eyes blazing. "That's why he didn't whore me out like the others. Toothless wouldn't let anyone touch me, so they would've had to tranq him every time, and tranq shots are _expensive_."

He gulped in a breath. "I couldn't work afterward. He beat us so much that I _tried_ , but I couldn't, and Toothless wouldn't obey me anyway. All he wanted to do was protect me and help me and love me, but Bludvist wouldn't let him and he'd get mad, and...it was such a waste of time. _Days_ ; we couldn't even make it into the next show, Bludvist was _furious_.

"That's when he made me off-limits. No one could pay enough to make it worth it. Bludvist beat them and tried to take it out of their pay, the cost of the tranq shot and for me and Toothless missing the show, but they ran off and he never found them."

Hiccup was quiet for so long that Stoick finally wondered if he should speak. That was the exact moment when Hiccup took a deep breath and said with tears in his voice, "I don't know if it was better or worse the second time. I don't even remember his name, but he had these gold rings on his fingers...he...he heard Sasheena talking about me, he heard what had happened back then...

"He shot Toothless and he missed the first time but it landed past the cage and I couldn't _reach_ it, the second shot hit him and I tried to stab myself with the dart but there wasn't anything left in it, I couldn't fall asleep..." He gritted his teeth. "He did what you said, he raped me. I thought I could get away this time because I was bigger than before and he was alone, but...I...couldn't. And he...he raped me and I wanted to _kill him_ -"

A terrible smile stretched Hiccup's mouth. "I didn't let Toothless take care of me that time. I made Toothless comfort me without helping me so that Bludvist could _see_ in the morning. He knew what happened and he yelled at me and hit me for letting him do it, and he hit Toothless for not protecting me, but then he took _him_ out and started beating him...I heard him screaming...I heard him begging, but Bludvist didn't listen to him and _he deserved it_ , and I'm pretty sure Bludvist killed him. I'm glad." Hiccup smiled that awful smile again. "He wasn't going to let him get away with it this time. He wasn't going to let him run off and escape like the others did. He wasted a tranq shot and a Night Fury act, so he _paid for it_."

After a moment, Hiccup's face crumpled. "Seth and the others, they always got tips...well, not Kieran, he just cried. But Seth and Sasheena and Ruby, they got money and food and favors; the men would have to pay Hunter to go into the harem, but then they also had to pay _them_ , too... I don't know how they did it. I don't know _how_ they could smile like that after they'd been, been 'raped' like you said. But those men hurt me so much and I couldn't even get them to pay me...I'm weak and useless just like Kieran, the only thing that makes me better than him is that I've got Toothless..."

There was a part of Stoick that loved his job, loved helping the helpless and bringing hope to those who had none. That was what kept him going for so long, what made him balk at choosing a different career. However, there was a much bigger part of him that was often heartsick, witnessing the worst of humanity on such a regular basis.

It tore at him to see and hear what these kids had been subjected to, how their hearts had been broken. His soul raged at the monsters who would do such terrible things to children, who would hurt them so badly and make them feel so unloved and worthless, and then convince them that it was their own fault.

He couldn't keep silent anymore, but Hiccup didn't show any reaction when he tried to explain. Stoick eventually had to give up; he clenched and unclenched his fists and tried to think of a different subject. "Did you train Toothless to do that?" he finally asked.

"Do what?"

"The deep pressure therapy and tactile stimulation."

Hiccup gave him a blank look.

"When he presses against you and licks you during your panic attacks. Did you teach him that?"

"No," Hiccup said, looking a little annoyed. "He comforts me when I'm upset. He loves me, I didn't have to _teach_ him that."

Perhaps someone else had trained Toothless, though it seemed rather bizarre that anyone would think to train a dragon as a service animal - particularly if Toothless had always been in the circus. "You said Toothless was just a baby when you first met him?"

Hiccup gave a very deep, long sigh. "I don't really remember anything before I came to the circus," he said in a wooden voice. "I know it was Christmas; I know that Hiiro Yui guy got assassinated. Momma scared me. I was glad when those men went away with her into the building, but then she was gone and I was scared, too. I didn't know what was happening back then, I was too little and stupid, but now I know that she was whoring herself out for money to buy more drugs."

He sighed again, petting Toothless as if the repetitive motion was a lifeline. "I was watching the baby dragon. They had it tied up, it was so _angry_ ; it was Toothless, you know. He _hated_ being chained up. They opened the cage to feed him and he managed to get loose, he couldn't shoot fire because I think he was too little, but he _screamed_ and shot _something_ at them, I don't know what but it was hot. Something caught on fire. Everyone was yelling and running around, I was scared and trying to stay out of the way and hide..."

He smiled a mirthless smile. "I heard the cage door slam, and I looked up and saw I was _inside_ the cage. I got caught in the cage with the dragon, and no one wanted to come too close and let me out again. I was _so scared_ , because I was stupid back then and didn't know that Toothless wouldn't hurt me. They just wandered around outside and talked about me and Toothless, and talked about trying to get me out, but they never did.

"I tried to stay as far from Toothless as I could, but there was nothing to hide behind. He didn't notice me for a while, he kept screaming at them and trying to get out of the cage and shooting that hot stuff at them, but then he coughed and nothing happened and I knew he couldn't shoot anymore.

"He was scared then. He backed away and tried to hide in my corner, but he bumped into me and he finally noticed me and got _really_ scared. He was hissing and he jumped away and kept staring at me like he thought I was going to attack him, so I lay down flat on the ground."

Stoick generally tried to be silent when children were giving their stories, not interrupting unless absolutely necessary, but he was too surprised by this. "You were a four-year-old locked in a cage with a raging dragon, and you lay down flat instead of curling up to protect yourself?"

"He was _scared_. He thought I was going to hurt him, so I tried to show him that I wouldn't hurt him."

"Were you still scared, too?"

"Yes," Hiccup barked out with a harsh laugh. "I was an idiot. Both of us were dumb; we hid at opposite ends of the cage for a whole day, thinking we were gonna hurt each other. Stupid."

"What happened when your mother finished working?"

Hiccup's look of scornful self-deprecation vanished, and he went pale again. His breath started coming a little short, and Toothless pressed back against him. "...She...finally she came out, and...saw me... I asked her to get me out, I asked her over and over, but Toothless was hissing and she didn't want to get close to him, either.

"Everyone kept talking about how Toothless hadn't hurt me yet...his name wasn't Toothless then, by the way; they called him Deathwing in the ring and 'the lizard' the rest of the time. Well, they still do that. But I don't like those names, so I started calling him Toothless because he looks like he doesn't have any teeth when he sucks them all into his mouth like that. That was later, when I was older and could talk better; I don't know what I called him before that. I don't think I called him anything, he was just my friend, but I didn't know how to say it."

Stoick, knowing that this rabbit trail was an attempt to avoid the painful memories, gently steered Hiccup back on track. "Your mother was just as frightened as everyone else was, hm?"

Hiccup exhaled tearfully. "I don't want to talk about this."

"I know. I know it must be very difficult and painful to tell me these things. We can stop for now if you want, but keep in mind that people are going to be asking you about these things for a very long time - months, probably; maybe even years. The more you talk about it, the easier it is to talk about."

"I don't _want_ to..."

"All right. In that case, do you think you'll be up to continuing this tomorrow, after you've had a chance to rest? We need to know everything we can so that we know who to prosecute, and what exactly to prosecute them for. I want to get these men off the streets, so that they can't hurt anyone else the way they hurt you and Kieran and Ruby and the others."

Hiccup swallowed.

"We can take a break now, though. I'll call Marta-"

Hiccup flung back his head and cried out angrily, then plunged back into his story. "He hadn't hurt me! _They_ were stupid, too; OBVIOUSLY Toothless isn't dangerous and wouldn't hurt me, but they all thought it was something special about _me_. Bludvist was staring at me with those _eyes_ and I was so, so scared, I was _way_ more scared of him than I was of Toothless, I was glad to be in the cage when he was looking at me like that. I was dumb and didn't know he had all the keys.

"M-Momma...she...didn't want to get me out." Tears trickled steadily down his face. "She didn't want to get too close. Sh-She...she said - she said, I had a gift, I could charm dragons and make them obey me, she said-" He had to pause for a minute to sob. "She said if they paid her 200, they could keep me as a dragon trainer. Bludvist gave her 50, and she-" Toothless licked him again, whimpering as if he was crying, too. "She took it and she LEFT ME."

Hiccup slumped into Toothless as he cried. "She left me...she _sold me_...she let them have me for 50 credits and _walked away_ , I know she bought drugs with that money and she's dead now, I _know_ she's dead now, I never saw her again. She left me. She sold me."

Tears were slipping down Stoick's face now, too. He moved to embrace the boy, but Hiccup screamed at him, and Toothless growled softly. "Hiccup...Hiccup, I'm so sorry..."

"Why did she leave me?" Hiccup wailed. "She _left me there_ , everything is _her fault_. I hate her _so much_ , I hate her _so much_ , I hate her so...much...!"

Hiccup lay curled tightly against Toothless for a long time. Despite the dragon's growls, Stoick edged close enough to lay a blanket over Hiccup, and to leave a plate of food and a bottle of water close to him. Hiccup didn't touch it, though Toothless shifted his head to nibble quietly at the fish and water Stoick set down for him. There was nothing else Stoick could do for Hiccup until the boy recovered, so he sat down with his computer to work. He stayed in the same room to keep an eye on the pair, but also because he knew that a mere presence, even without any direct interaction, was enough sometimes.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: Ftr, a "harem" is a place where a polygamous man's multiple wives and concubines are kept; the term is also used collectively for the women themselves. The 'circus' in this fic uses it as a euphemistic name for the brothel area; the term is not used literally.


	6. Chapter 6 - Tutor

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks' _How to Train Your Dragon_ fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 6 - Tutor (rough draft)**

 **A/N: Valka's a little OOC. Sorry to everyone who's been looking forward to her! D:**

o.o.o

Stoick heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Frowning, he got up and looked out the front windows, watching until he realized who the driver was. His eyes widened. "I told him not to come until I gave him a date...!" He went to open the door as the visitor approached the house.

The man stopped dead, staring guiltily at Stoick's displeased expression for a moment. Then he plastered a smile on his face and called out, "Hello, Stoick!"

"I haven't given you a date yet," Stoick growled.

"Ah, yes, for sure, for sure; but I figured-! Well, I half-expected to be turned away, but I thought it couldn't hurt- Uh...is the dragon here?" the man asked eagerly.

Stoick sighed. He had been grateful to find a tutor who actually sounded _eager_ to work in close proximity to a potentially dangerous animal, but he hadn't realized until this moment that William Hennessey was apparently a dragon fanatic. "Hiccup," Stoick called, "this is your tutor. He wasn't supposed to come today, and you don't have to work with him right now if you don't want to. We can wait until later this week. But he's here now, so what do you think, lad? Should I let him inside, or should I send him away?"

Hiccup slowly raised his head. "What does he want? What's he here for?"

"He's a tutor- A teacher. You can't go to school with a dragon, so for now, you'll just be working one-on-one with a teacher. He'll be teaching you math and science, and he'll give you books to read, that sort of thing."

Hennessey had been edging into the house as Stoick spoke, ducking under Stoick's arm like a child trying to get an early glimpse of his Christmas gifts. As soon as Hennessey laid eyes on Toothless, he sucked in a delighted breath. "Dragooooonnn!" he sang very softly. "Ohhhh, Stoick, ohhhh, I am so happy I took this job, ohhhhh, look at him! There is a dragon in your living room, Stoick, _look at him_!"

"You sound like my wife," Stoick grumbled. "Hiccup, he's not supposed to be here today, so I can send him away if you want. He just wanted to see the dragon."

Hiccup watched them warily, not answering, but Toothless hauled himself to his feet and came over to the men to investigate. Hennessey stood very still, staring down at Toothless with a huge silly grin on his face, as the dragon sniffed at him for a solid minute. Then Toothless made a satisfied sort of chuffing sound and ambled back to Hiccup, dropping down into a sprawl with his body curled around the boy.

"Oh, goodness, look at him," Hennessey breathed. "A real live dragon, _right here_..." He was edging toward the boys as he spoke, eyes riveted by Toothless, who fixed him with an unwavering, narrow-eyed gaze. When the man started to slowly reach out his hand, Toothless growled. Hennessey instantly snatched his hand back. "He doesn't like me, huh," he chuckled nervously.

"Why do you want to touch him?" Hiccup asked.

"Why-?! Because he's cool! He's _amazing_! Hiccup, your dragon is A-MA-ZING."

"Then why are you so nervous?"

"Uh...because- Well, because he's a dragon," Hennessey said, looking sheepish. "They're _beautiful_ , but they're...wild animals, you know... Will he bite me if I touch him?"

"You're making him nervous. _You_ being nervous makes him think maybe there's something he needs to worry about. And he doesn't like when people _stare_ at him like that." Hennessey instantly averted his eyes. Hiccup reached out and grasped the man's wrist, drawing it close. At the same time, Hiccup put his other arm around the dragon's neck and laid his cheek against Toothless's head. "It's okay, bud," he murmured. "Sshh, it's okay, he won't hurt us." His eyes flicked to Hennessey. "Right?"

"Oh, no, of course not! I _love_ him! And, er, I'm here to help you, of course; but yes, I have only the highest regard for you both!" The delight in his eyes was so sincere that Hiccup gave a very brief smile and resumed pulling Hennessey's hand close. Toothless gave a high whine, breathing a little more heavily as he tried to trust Hiccup.

Skin touched scales. Hennessey looked breathless with awe, Toothless looked a little longsuffering. The dragon briefly closed his eyes, then tugged away and buried his face in Hiccup's chest. Hiccup murmured to him affectionately and petted him.

"Marvelous," Hennessey whispered. He glanced down the dragon's body, eyes finally coming to rest on the tail. He frowned and reached out to touch the scar from Toothless's missing fin, but Hiccup stopped him before he could.

"What happened to him?" Hennessey said in dismay. "Can he fly?!"

"No."

Hennessey looked and sounded as if he had just learned that a neighbor's child had died. "Ohh, that's _terrible_! Who would do such a thing?! Oh, well, I suppose..." He looked embarrassed again, and seemed to truly notice Hiccup for the first time. "So...Hiccup, eh? My name is Will. Hello! It's good to meet you!"

"Hello," Hiccup said guardedly.

"I'm so sorry if we got off on the wrong foot! Please do forgive me, I've- Well," he stammered with a little laugh, "I've been quite captivated by dragons ever since I was a little boy. Even considered working with them in a zoo or on a reserve or some such, but honestly, I'm not cut out for fieldwork." With a tender look on his face, he stroked the dragon's tail, higher up and away from the missing fin. Toothless, without taking his face out of Hiccup's chest, twitched his tail and curled it more tightly around the boy.

"Well! So, I suppose I am to be your tutor for-! Well, indefinitely."

"A tutor is a teacher?"

"Why, yes, Hiccup! Tell me, have you ever been to school?"

"No."

"Oh, I see! Well, do you know how to read?"

"...A little."

"Marvelous! What about mathematics?"

"Mathe...? What?"

"I see, I see! Well, don't you worry, Hiccup. For our first session, I'll give you an exam- No worries, it's not one you have to study for! I simply need to determine exactly what educational level you're at, and then we'll take it from there!"

Hiccup had started staring at the man as if he was speaking a foreign language.

"Let's see, I brought my things just in case, but we don't have to... Well! I suppose it's up to you, Hiccup! Would you like to start our lessons now, or wait until tomorrow?"

"I want to eat. I'm hungry." Hiccup reached out for the plate Stoick had given him earlier, tugging it close enough for him to more easily reach the sandwich that had been placed on it. He bit into the food, still watching Will warily.

"Ah, I see! No problem, no problem _at all_ , I could do with a bit of a snack myself! Stoick, do you-?"

Stoick sighed. "Go talk to Marta."

After Hiccup had eaten, he looked at the placement test Will showed him, but declined to work on it. Will spent a while longer admiring and gushing about Toothless, and rambling at Hiccup and Stoick, then finally gathered his things together. "I'll see you tomorrow, Hiccup!" he called cheerfully on his way out.

"Not so fast," Stoick ordered. "Dr. Ikeda is supposed to arrive tomorrow for a psychological evaluation. I don't know if Hiccup will even be up for tutoring afterward, so _wait until I call you_ to make arrangements."

"Certainly! Can do! I'll see you soon, Hiccup!" Will gave a last wave and then, reluctantly, turned away and ambled toward his car. Stoick shut the door very firmly after him.

That evening after Marta had left, while Stoick was in the shower, Hiccup found a canister of flour. He experimented with it for a while, then started using the white powder to 'paint' designs on Toothless. The dragon grumbled, but let himself get distracted when Hiccup gave him a treat from the bag of dog chews Marta had brought earlier.

Toothless was gnawing on his treat, and Hiccup was happily tracing white spirals and squiggles over the dragon's scales, then there was a sudden commotion at the front door.

Hiccup leaped to his feet and Toothless responded to his alarm instantly, the flour canister and the dog chew forgotten on the floor. Hiccup stared at the front door with his hand pressed against Toothless, his body hunched and tense, and Toothless growled softly.

The door finally burst open, bouncing against the wall as a woman struggled inside with a lot of luggage. "Are you home, Stoick?" she called, then made an exasperated exclamation and dropped her armfuls of stuff, swinging the door shut again rather harder than was necessary. She exhaled and leaned against the wall for a minute with her eyes closed.

Then she straightened up, opened her eyes, caught sight of the Night Fury standing in the entrance to the kitchen, and made a noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a shriek. Toothless curled himself closer around Hiccup.

"Who are you?" Hiccup demanded.

"Th-That's- a _dragon_?!" Her mouth dropped open. "Is that the Night Fury?!" The shock on her face was starting to give way to delight as she slipped to the ground and lay flat on her stomach, staring at Toothless as much as one could using only peripheral vision. "Hel _lo_ , sweetheart!" she crooned. "Ohhh, you, oh, look at you!"

She sounded so much like Will that it reminded Hiccup of a remark Stoick had made earlier. "Are you Stoick's wife?" he asked.

She blinked at him, momentarily distracted from the dragon. "Hello!" she exclaimed. "You-? Ah! You're the boy? The one Stoick couldn't place in a foster home because of-" She indicated Toothless, grinning.

Hiccup found himself grinning back, and Toothless relaxed a little as his human's fear faded. "This is Toothless. I'm Hiccup."

"Toothless~" she crooned, wriggling forward. Toothless came to meet her, sniffing at her hair and back for a minute. The dragon licked her neck a couple of times and then returned to Hiccup, nuzzling him.

The woman sat up and scooted backward, fumbling enthusiastically through one of her suitcases before she finally extracted something with a triumphant little cry. It looked like some sort of scanner, which she ran over the part of her skin that Toothless had licked. She then looked eagerly at the little screen. Hiccup edged closer until he could see a spectrum of mostly-orange color and the number '33%.'

"What is that?" he asked.

"A DO-graph," she answered distractedly, then said what was probably the thing's full name, but it was long and complicated and Hiccup couldn't remember how to pronounce it. "33% certainty that I'm not a threat- Oooohhh!" She suddenly fixed her eyes on Hiccup. "May I please scan you?! Please? I promise, it doesn't hurt at all!"

Hiccup only agreed because she had already scanned herself without so much as a wince. He gripped Toothless for reassurance, but kept still as she held the 'DO-graph' close to him and pressed a button. She gasped at whatever she saw on the screen. Then, looking almost maniacally happy, she scanned him again, this time from head to foot. Hiccup didn't feel a thing, but was warily curious about whatever readings she was getting from him.

"100%!" she practically yelled in delight. "Treasure, these are _treasure marks_ , 100% treasure, on a _human_! This is _incredible_! Oooh, and look at all these, look at ALL THESE-" She broke off and stared joyfully at Hiccup. "You are _caked_ with dragon marks. _Caked_. What did you do to get him to adore you so very much?!"

"He's Toothless," Hiccup mumbled, leaning on the dragon and not sure how to answer the question. "He's my-" He had never really had a label for Toothless that fit. "He's mine. I'm his, too. We're always together."

Tenderly, the woman reached out to stroke Hiccup's cheek, then scratched Toothless's head in exactly the right spots. Toothless warbled in pleasure and butted her side to prompt more caresses. The woman happily obliged, her hands moving over the dragon with such expertise that she soon had him sprawled on the floor, gurgling and wriggling in bliss. Hiccup was starting to get a little jealous.

Then the woman froze. She gently lifted the end of Toothless's tail in her hands, looking horrified. "What happened here?!"

"They cut it off so he couldn't fly away and escape."

She actually _cried_. She cradled the single fin to her chest as if it was a hurt child, then she set it down and nuzzled Toothless. He licked her tears away and crooned at her. "How could they?! How _could_ they?! A grounded dragon is a dead dragon, they've taken away his _flight_ , oh, Toothless, you poor sweet thing...!"

"It's okay, he's not sad. And he's not dead, either!"

"I meant-"

"It was before I met him, so he must have been real little, he doesn't even remember. He's never flown, so he doesn't miss it because he doesn't know what it's like. He's happy because we're together, that's all that matters."

The woman smiled sadly and reached out to stroke Hiccup's cheek.

"Val." The three of them looked up to see Stoick in the doorway, his shirt half unbuttoned and his hair still damp from the shower. He had a soft look on his face as he watched his wife, who immediately went over to wrap her arms around him.

"Oh, Stoick," she whispered, "ohh, Stoick, he's beautiful..." She leaned back and smiled, her excitement starting to creep back. "Of all things, Stoick Vast! I only meant to stay the night here before figuring out where to find Toothless tomorrow - I never expected that he'd be _here_! A dragon in _your house_ , Stoick!"

"I'm just glad he's behaved himself so far, for the most part." Stoick's gaze moved to Hiccup. "Hiccup, this is my wife, Valka."

"Yeah." Hiccup wasn't sure what else to say. Stoick looked happier than Hiccup had yet seen him.

The couple were back to gazing at each other, Stoick's hands gradually stroking down her sides as Valka absently played with his collar. "I didn't know you were coming," he murmured. "It was supposed to be someone named Ogechi Johnson, wasn't it?"

"I _had_ to come when I heard it was a Night Fury! Ogechi let me take her place, she preferred to keep working with the new Monstrous Nightmare hatchling instead." Valka beamed at him. "He's a _Night Fury_ , Stoick! With a HUMAN TREASURE! Do you know what this means?! Do you know how incredible this is?! Please, Stoick, please let me take Hiccup back to the-!"

"Out of the question," Stoick said firmly. "He's a _foster child_ , Val, he can't leave the country, and we don't want to uproot him again unnecessarily - not to mention the fact that we need his help for the investigations and the trials! No one's going to be using him for zoological research anytime soon."

Her eyes widened. "Stoick!" She couldn't seem to articulate the rest of her dismayed protests.

Stoick looked at Hiccup again. "My wife is a dracologist who works at a reserve called the Sanctuary, or at least that's what its name translates to in English. She doesn't come home often, usually only once or twice a year... We called the Sanctuary when we raided the circus and knew we'd have to find a place to send the dragon."

"She's here for Toothless?"

Stoick recognized the look on Hiccup's face. "I'll try my hardest to make sure you're not separated, Hiccup. I'm hoping that Dr. Ikeda can help with that. But even if we can keep you together, Toothless is an extremely rare animal, and the dracologists will certainly want to study him."

"And _you_ , too, Hiccup!" Valka added. "You are the first known human treasure in history! We _can't_ pass up an opportunity like this!"

"A treasure is...something that's important to you?"

"I meant in the zoological sense - a 'treasure' is whomever a dragon loves and protects most. We originally thought they were mates, until someone finally figured out that not all dragons even interact with their mates much outside of reproduction and raising their young, and that a dragon's most beloved companion will often be someone other than his or her mate. So the term had to be changed, and the story is that 'treasure' started out as a joke - referencing mythical dragon hoards, you know - but it's a term that's now accepted by professionals and used universally."

She beamed at Hiccup, who looked a little lost at her attempted explanation. "But it's always been another _dragon_ , Hiccup! There have been occasional humans who've managed to befriend dragons - for example, there are dragons at the Sanctuary who regularly leave 'friend' marks on me - but until now, no human has ever, ever been loved enough by a dragon to be considered its treasure!"

Hiccup, looking more uncomfortable than anything, silently laid his head against the dragon's and stroked his shoulder. Toothless gently butted his head against him, then nudged and nuzzled him. Hiccup growled playfully and hoisted himself across the dragon's back, trying to force him down. Toothless gave an amused cackle and craned his head, trying to catch hold of Hiccup with toothless jaws.

Valka was digging through her luggage again. "Where, _where_ is my camera...?!"

"I'm filming it," Stoick assured her. She smiled and returned to his side.

Hiccup relaxed as they wrestled. No longer caring about the slightly overwhelming newcomer, he pounced on and bit and wrapped his arms around Toothless, laughing as the dragon bumped and shoved him back. The tussle finally ended with Hiccup lying on his stomach, contently resting his head on his arms. Toothless held him in place with a foreleg slung across his back, leisurely bathing the back of Hiccup's neck and the roots of his hair.

"You know," Stoick remarked, sounding a little pained, "you wouldn't have to bathe more than once a day if you stopped letting him make a mess of you like that."

"We don't like baths," Hiccup mumbled.

"Please make him stop licking you so much, it's disturbing..."

"It's _important_ , Stoick," Valka said. "He's marking him. Look." She approached close enough to capture another scan. "100% treasure, incredibly fresh," she interpreted happily. Toothless, who had paused to give her a wary look, resumed his work. "I've got to send these to Africa tonight, the others will _love_ this!"

"Hiccup needs to start getting ready for bed," Stoick said.

Valka asked curiously where the boys slept, and Stoick showed her. "Does Marta wash their sheets every day?" Valka asked.

"Of course."

"Well, tell her to stop. Dragons don't like synthetic scents; Toothless probably hates the smell of laundry detergent. He'll be more comfortable if you let him and Hiccup nest in dirty sheets."

"What?! Valka, I can't do that!"

"Why not?!"

"It might be considered neglect! I can't do that to a foster child in my care!"

Hiccup and Toothless settled down and fell asleep long before the adults finished arguing.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I've known for ages that bones are dangerous for dogs to chew on, but I always wondered why there's a simultaneous cliché about dogs chewing on bones. I _finally_ learned that it's **COOKED bones that are dangerous for dogs! (When bones are cooked/steamed/boiled/etc., they get brittle and tend to splinter.)** Raw, uncooked bones are safer, though there are still a few risks, so please educate yourself beforehand if you're intending to try it. Also, apparently the less expensive dog chew brands include just as much cancer-causing crap in their products as processed human food does, so please stick to high-quality, all-natural dog chews for your pet.

My strongest impression of Valka is "dragon fangirl." XD I feel like she should have been more dignified in this fic... Also, she and Cloudjumper aren't two halves in this fic because living in modern times kind of has its restrictions. :/ They _are_ still really close, though.

"DO-graph" does stand for something, but I wanted to keep it secret for now because I might need it for a different story.

"Treasure" in this fanfic is the equivalent term for "two halves"/"other half" in my other fics. It's the same basic concept, but I figured humans would use a different term for it.


	7. Chapter 7 - Evaluation

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 7 - Evaluation (rough draft)**

Stoick was ordinarily an early riser, so the next morning was unusual in that Hiccup and Toothless woke up and soon discovered that Marta was the only one around.

Immediately upon seeing Toothless, the housekeeper crossed herself and tossed a treat at him, apparently to bribe him into ignoring her. As the dragon was happily preoccupied, Marta moved closer to Hiccup so she could caress his face and croon to him in her native language, then she bustled him to the table and set a plate in front of him. "Vege-tab _first_ ," she instructed firmly. "Then fish."

"I...don't really want the plants...the fish looks really good."

"You will eat vege-tab. Good for you, growing body, you need it. _Eat_."

Hiccup reluctantly choked down the vegetables, then devoured the fruit she rewarded him with before settling in on the fish. As he ate, Marta dumped some raw fish into Toothless's bucket, then went back to cooking.

Neither of their remaining housemates had appeared by the time Hiccup and Toothless finished breakfast. The boys curiously started searching, and found both Stoick and Valka still fast asleep in the master bedroom.

Clothes were strewn all over the otherwise tidy room, and Valka was nestled in her husband's arms. A sheet covered them for the most part (half of the rest of the bedding was drooping to the floor), but all the skin exposed above the edge of the sheet was bare. Toothless cocked his head at the scent in the room; Hiccup made a face at it.

Hiccup recognized this sort of thing from TV. He didn't know how to feel about seeing it here. Stoick and this house were supposed to be safe, they were _supposed_ to be, but this- But then, Hiccup had already known that he couldn't trust anyone except Toothless, so this shouldn't be as surprising and disappointing and frightening as it was.

Yet why did Valka look so relaxed and content? The only other woman in real life Hiccup had seen looking like this after sex was Ruby, just once, when Hiccup happened to have caught a glimpse of her lying in Seth's arms rather than a customer's. Hiccup hadn't understood it at the time, and he didn't understand it now, only that it probably had something to do with that alien other world he'd glimpsed through the TV screen.

Toothless's curious noises had started to rouse the sleeping pair. Stoick shifted, tightening his arm around his wife and laying a tender kiss on her temple; Valka smiled without opening her eyes. The man's gaze moved to the clock - then he shot upright. "How did this-?! My alarm didn't go off!"

"I turned it off, love," Valka said sleepily, rolling over to cuddle against him. "Didn't you say you work from home now?"

Stoick had noticed their little audience by then. "Hiccup?!"

Valka quickly rolled back to look, clutching the sheet over her breasts as she stared at the boys.

"Breakfast," Hiccup said uncomfortably. "In the kitchen. Marta made it. She said yours is done."

"Stop staring and shut the door," Stoick snapped.

Hiccup frowned in confusion, but obeyed. He waited until he heard the shower running, then he cracked open the bedroom door again and peeked inside. Valka was wearing a bathrobe, looking contemplative as she combed her hair. She glanced up and smiled a little when she saw the boys. "Good morning."

"Good morning..." Hiccup edged inside the room, and settled on the floor when she did not protest his presence. "Did you have sex?"

"Er...yes, we did," she said awkwardly, then smiled a little. "We _are_ married, you know. Informally separated, but... Well, let's just say I never use a guest room when I visit this house."

Hiccup wasn't quite sure what that meant, but let it pass. "How much did he pay you?" Stoick looked a lot richer than the usual sort of men who were interested in the harem at the circus.

Valka stared at him in shock. " _Pay_ me?!"

"I was just curious... Ruby's never gotten more than 300; usually it's less than that. Sasheena charges a lot more, she said one time she got one guy to pay her 1,000 - that doesn't count the fee to Hunter just to get inside the harem - but Seth says she's exaggerating. I've never been able to figure out how much Seth makes for real, I think he lies about it. I think it's a lot. Kieran's lucky to get anything-"

"Oh God!"

Hiccup had no idea why she was staring at him with such a horrified look on her face.

She came straight to him, reaching out almost desperately. "Oh, Hiccup, oh, sweetheart, that's the sort of place you came from?! I thought... I- Oh, sweetheart."

"I wasn't in the harem," he mumbled. "Toothless kept me safe." He swallowed. "From most of it." He felt uncomfortable when she hugged him, not liking that he couldn't see her face or that she was restricting his movement. However, he could tell she meant well, so he kept his hand on Toothless and endured it. He finally whispered, "You looked happy. I don't understand that. It bothers me."

They talked for a long time. Stoick, coming out of the master bathroom after his shower, realized what they were talking about, winced, and hurried across the room to leave.

After about twenty minutes, when Hiccup was starting to feel a little better even though his mind was wild with confusion and surprise and analyses, someone rang the doorbell. Hiccup and Toothless instantly stared in that direction, frozen, like cats poised between fight or flight.

Valka stood up and held out a hand to Hiccup. "Let's go see who it is," she said gently.

The short, black-haired woman at the door introduced herself briskly as "Dr. Alen Ikeda" and stepped inside. The instant she caught sight of Toothless, she rocked back a step with her arms slightly raised in a self-defensive gesture. "Oh my goodness gracious the dragon's loose!" she gasped, all in one breath.

Stoick, having heard her enter, hurried into the living room and said quickly, "It's all right, Alen, he's been uncaged in my house for about three days now and hasn't caused any harm. He's very tame."

"I see." The hand she extended was a little unsteady and the tension in her body was evident, but her expression was mostly composed as Toothless approached. He sniffed at her fingers, nosed along her forearm, then poked his snout gently into her stomach before returning to his place beside Hiccup.

"May I please scan you?" Valka asked eagerly.

"Pardon me?"

"He's just marked you. I'd like to see-" Valka was already running the DO-graph over Dr. Ikeda's arm and stomach. The spectrum of color on the screen was difficult to see, very dim compared to the readings Valka got from saliva. "Not-a-threat and not-prey, 51%," she muttered. She glanced up at the doctor and smiled. "He trusts you decently enough. Just don't do anything to upset him, such as lunging at Hiccup or yelling at him."

"I would do no such thing," Ikeda snapped. She sighed and raked a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry, Hiccup. I'm a bit rattled; usually I'm more polite than this."

"Are you scared of Toothless?" he asked curiously.

"He is a _dragon_ , of course I will be cautious. However, I am trusting Stoick Vast's word that the animal is well-trained and will behave himself during my time here."

After introductions had been made and refreshments had been offered, Dr. Ikeda sat down with Hiccup (and Toothless) in the living room. "All right, Hiccup. Let me explain my purpose here, and what I hope we will be able to do during this session."

In the kitchen, Marta was washing dishes, Valka was starting on her breakfast, and Stoick had positioned himself to be able to keep her company while simultaneously keeping an eye on the trio in the living room. After a few minutes, Valka said her husband's name in an attention-getting voice.

Stoick frowned over at her, confused. "What's wrong?"

"I thought they came from a _circus_ ," she said tightly. "I was told that an abused Night Fury had been rescued and needed to be transported to the reserve. No one told me that poor boy had been trapped in a- And what was a _dragon_ doing in a brothel, anyway?!"

"It _was_ a circus, Val. Well, not a real one, I suppose; but there _were_ performances involving acrobatics and trained animals. But obviously it wasn't mainstream or reputable, and a large portion of their income was coming from prostitution behind the scenes. Most of the sex workers doubled as performers, and most of them were minors...it was terrible. It's _still_ terrible. The children aren't being abused anymore, but they're still suffering."

Valka buried her face in her hands for a long moment. When she finally raised her head again, she asked softly, "Hiccup was the dragon handler?"

"Yes. It means he was protected from some of it, but even so... Val, he _lived in the cage with the dragon_. They locked him in there like he was an animal, too; all he had to eat was the same raw fish they threw in for Toothless, it- _Agh_."

"Let's adopt him, Stoick," she murmured.

They held each other's eyes for a while. "We should discuss this later," Stoick said gently.

"He looks...he's the same age Henry would have been now, he's so small just like him, he-"

"And he has a Night Fury."

"Well, yes..."

"It's not a decision that can be made lightly. For one thing, the boy could have some family out there to claim him; we're still investigating. He might not even be available."

"I want him," Valka muttered, then lapsed into silence as she resumed eating.

At one point during the morning, Will arrived, peeking eagerly past Stoick even though the larger man was blocking the doorway. "Hello, hello! Yes, I do in fact remember that you said to call before I, well, but I didn't think it- Is this a bad time?"

"It is a TERRIBLE time. Go away, Will!"

The man did, though only after he'd gotten a chance to pet and squee over Toothless a little bit.

After Dr. Ikeda had finished her evaluation, she let Hiccup go play with Toothless and Valka in the backyard, and Stoick showed her a lot of the footage he had filmed of Hiccup's interactions with Toothless. Ikeda watched carefully and took notes, listened when Stoick told her what he knew of Valka's observations, then began sharing her preliminary conclusions. "Of course Hiccup needs to start regular therapy," she said, "which we both expected. I will continue to make home visits to work with him until his and the dragon's mutual codependence has been dealt with enough for Hiccup to start coming to me instead."

"Codependence..."

"They can't live without each other. They are fixated on each other to an unhealthy degree, and Hiccup simply won't be able to function in society in the long-term if he is unable to separate from his dragon for periods of time."

"What about the possibility of Toothless being his service animal?"

"I highly doubt it would work. Toothless, while performing tasks that are surprisingly very similar to certain tasks of trained service animals, has received no formal training himself. Furthermore, he's a _dragon_ , Stoick. No judge is going to allow a dangerous exotic animal to legally work as a service animal."

"That boy needs that dragon. He _needs_ him, and you know it, Alen."

"Yes, Stoick, I agree, but the problem here is convincing a judge if this issue ever ends up in court."

"What about an Emotional Support Animal, then? He won't be able to take Toothless everywhere he goes, but it would at least help the case for not permanently separating them, wouldn't it?"

"It would, and would also be easier to pull off than the service animal approach. I can say for certain that Toothless's companionship is essential for the boy's mental health, and I will officially specify Toothless as Hiccup's ESA. You might still face some legal opposition, due to the simple fact that Toothless is a dragon rather than a domesticated animal, but you'll have a better chance if you have my letter and can find an understanding judge. Those videos you keep filming of them are a great help as well."

"Thank you, Doctor."

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: *deletes deletes deletes previous author's note* Soooo many people tried to help me with the "psychologist vs. psychiatrist" thing, even though they didn't say anything that other readers hadn't already said, or that I hadn't already seen in my research. X''''''D Veriea Fornnan was the one who explained it in a way I finally understood. :) I realized that it was the overlap that had been confusing me - I had been trying to figure out which kind of mental health professional would work with Hiccup in this situation, and there were so many similarities that I couldn't determine which was the right one, which was when I gave up. ^^;

Ftr, Ikeda got her doctorate in an unrelated field; she's a hard worker and has multiple interests.

It should hopefully have already been clear in the story, but the 'circus' in this fic was not a real circus, though it pretended to be in some ways. I researched real circuses, and found a lot of controversy about the use of animals, particularly exotic ones. A lot of the negative articles were obvious propaganda, and the ones that weren't propaganda still didn't seem to have balanced research - they sounded like the authors were spending most of their focus on negative cases and only giving the positive ones a passing mention. (There was also one really perplexing article where I honestly couldn't tell whether the author was condoning or deploring animal cruelty. *sweatdrop*)

The positive articles I saw tended to be more detailed, thorough, varied (as in, referencing several different kinds of situations rather than just generalizing), and written in the tone of people who love and respect animals, just like an ordinary dog- or cat-lover would. A couple of sites also had pictures. Of course there are always going to be cases of animal cruelty, just as there will always be cases of child abuse and domestic animal cruelty in the outside world; but training animals for performances is not _inherently_ a bad thing, especially if the animal wasn't born in the wild. What matters is _how_ the animal is trained, whether or not it's done with respect and sensitivity and positive reinforcement, and also whether or not the animal is naturally inclined to perform (some are, some are not; it depends on the individual). (Though one person did bring up a good point that circuses which strive to take proper care of their animals can find it difficult to compete with rivals who lower costs by cutting corners and breaking animal-protection laws... :/)

I still dislike writing original stories and I still dislike Fan Characters in general, but for some reason, I find that, against my will, I am more and more enjoying creating original characters to use in my fanfiction. *sweatdrop* I keep initially creating them just to be throwaway background characters, but more and more often now, they'll quickly develop their own individual personalities. X'D Seth started telling me some things about himself that have no relevance to this fanfic, and also informed me that, by the way, he and Ruby are in love. ^^;

And then Dr. Ikeda. I wanted her to be a descendant of Japanese immigrants, so I wanted her to have a Japanese family name and a non-Japanese given name that could still be spelled easily in katakana. For some reason, the first name that popped into my head was "Alen." It intrigued me because it's a non-traditional spelling of an English male name, and it can be spelled exactly in katakana but has an L in it (the Japanese language does not distinguish between the 'L' and 'R' sounds).

22 July 2015 Wed. - At one point during my dreams last night, there was a part where Hiccup was trying to carry Astrid over a pile of debris that was blocking their way, but she jumped out of his arms and strode away, saying, "I wish you'd stop _doing_ that." They passed in front of a group of men who were staring at them, one of the men even smirking at Hiccup's seeming failure to be manly. But then, as Astrid stood there struggling to unlock a door, Hiccup gently plucked the keys out of her hand, practically only had to touch the key to the lock, and the door sprang open. "After you, milady." I have _no idea_ why I dreamed that, I don't think the rest of my dreams had anything to do with HTTYD; but, to reinforce what I said in the author's notes of _Inadequate_ , that's my favorite kind of HiccStrid. And it's also a better example of HiccStrid I find enjoyable than _Inadequate_ itself was. XD (Ftr, this has nothing to do with _Dragon Treasure_ ; this is a literal last-minute note I'm adding because I thought it was interesting. *sweatdrop*)


	8. Chapter 8 - Routine, part 1

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 8 - Routine, part 1 (rough draft)**

As time passed, things started to fall into a routine. Stoick still worked from home sometimes, but now that his wife was available and willing to look after Hiccup and Toothless, Stoick was able to go back to the office on most days. When Valka reported the situation back to the Sanctuary, she was permitted to take on the Night Fury and his treasure as a new research project, which allowed Valka to stay with the boys without having to take time off from work.

Marta grew more accustomed to Toothless, until eventually she started greeting him with the same smiles and crooning and motherly caresses as Hiccup received. Dr. Ikeda also grew comfortable around Toothless, and Will's enthusiasm soon lapsed into a more temperate affection and curiosity.

Marta was the one who had assessed Hiccup's tastes and needs after just a couple of meals, quickly defaulted to plain and oddly cooked fish the way he liked it best, and was now gradually getting him accustomed to a much more varied and healthy diet than he was used to.

After breakfast, Will would arrive to work with Hiccup on the subjects he liked less. It had been discovered from the placement test that Hiccup was almost completely illiterate - he recognized some words from memory rather than actually reading them. He only knew how to write his own name because Seth had taught it to him a few years before. Hiccup also knew almost no math apart from very basic addition and subtraction using his fingers. He would struggle with his reading and writing for an hour or two, then listen eagerly to a social studies lesson, which he liked better.

After that was when Dr. Ikeda would arrive on therapy days. Hiccup wasn't always upset after those sessions, but he sometimes was, which was why they left his favorite school subjects for last. After he'd been given some time alone with Toothless to recover, he would _usually_ be willing to come back for some math and science lessons.

He loved doing science experiments with Will, and seemed to be particularly interested in mechanics. He began regularly taking apart various items to see how they worked, and on his own initiative, he started a project to make Toothless a prosthetic tail fin - not a cosmetic one like the dragon had worn for his circus performances, but a functional one to match his remaining fin.

"You really think that you'll be able to get him to fly someday?" Will asked curiously.

"We've always wanted to fly. I thought we'd never be able to, but now that you're teaching me all these things, I know we can do it. Like the Wright brothers, or Amelia Earheart." Hiccup smiled up at him. "Thank you, Will. I never would have known about all the things people have done if you hadn't told me. I wouldn't be able to do this without you." He gestured at the fin he was working on.

Will smiled back and affectionately scratched behind Toothless's head plates. "It's my pleasure, Hiccup. Thank you for being such an amazing student, and for introducing me to the coolest dragon in the world!"

Hiccup enjoyed working with Valka for her research, and learning everything about dragons that she took the opportunity to teach him. He and Toothless would show off for her, or she would teach Hiccup things about his companion that the boy had never known or at least been able to articulate. Just like Stoick, she also filmed them a lot.

"This is Hiccup," Valka narrated as she held the camera, "the first known human to be considered a 'treasure' by a dragon. As you can see, this dragon, whose name is Toothless, is treating his human with complete trust and affection, exposing his vulnerabilities without any hesitation or worry." She paused a moment to focus on Toothless wriggling happily on his back as Hiccup stroked his belly. "All right, now let's try a demonstration." She handed the camera to her husband. "Don't drop it, dear. Toothless is about to attack me."

"What?!"

Before Stoick could forbid or demand anything, Valka was marching away. She seized Hiccup, yanked him to his feet, and started to violently drag him off.

Hiccup yelped and protested, and Toothless snapped upright, staring for a moment in frozen shock. Then the dragon leaped to his feet and rushed after them, roaring. Valka let go of Hiccup and ran flat-out. Toothless chased her for a few steps, snarled one last time for good measure, then whirled around, gave a bark of concern, and trotted back to Hiccup. He gently pushed the boy to the ground and crouched over him, nosing at him anxiously.

Valka, breathless and grinning, returned to her husband and held out her hands for the camera. "I hope you kept it steady."

"Of course I didn't," Stoick grumbled as he passed it over. "You nearly gave me a heart attack."

Valka refocused the camera on the boys. "As you saw, the dragon was upset by the threat to his treasure, and has started to calm down and reassure himself now that the threat is gone. He does this by assuming a dominant stance, which asserts ownership, and by licking his human to refresh the scent-marks on him."

"Why does everyone always like filming me?" Hiccup complained half-playfully, making a face at the camera as he lay without resisting the dragon's ministrations.

"Hiccup, nothing like this has _ever been captured on film before_ ," Valka said gleefully. "This is _wonderful_!"

"You scared him!"

"He's all right. I just startled him, that's all; you're safe and everything is fine now."

"Everything's fine, Toothless," Hiccup crooned, caressing the dragon's head plates, "no thanks to _her_..."

Valka also helped a lot in improving Toothless's image to people with more unsympathetic opinions. After explaining into a camera for a while, she told Hiccup to pet Toothless and then gave instructions to Stoick and Will.

When everything was ready, Valka gave the signal, and Stoick started bellowing furiously as he manhandled Will and shoved him to the ground and pretended to beat him. Stoick was an extremely large, loud, and strong man; Will's frightened shrieks were genuine.

Toothless leaped to his feet in shock, staring at the men for a second. Then he trotted over to them and made an uncertain sort of roar at Stoick, who paused to shout that Toothless was an overgrown lizard who should mind his own business.

Toothless growled, then darted at Will and tried to pull him away. Stoick lunged at Toothless, who leaped out of reach and circled around, growling.

When it became obvious that Toothless was trying to help Will without injuring either of the men, Valka called an end to it. Stoick held out a conciliatory hand to the dragon, but Toothless growled at the offer and retreated to guard Hiccup, glaring. Stoick had to speak gently and move slowly for a long time, and show quite a lot of affection to Will, before Toothless started to trust him again. Even then, the dragon wouldn't let Stoick close to Hiccup until Hiccup went to shower his foster father with affection, trying to prove that there was nothing to worry about.

"There was quite a significant difference," Valka lectured the camera in the meantime. "It is already known that a dragon will go to any lengths to protect its treasure, which is why Toothless has acted aggressively toward anyone he thinks is threatening Hiccup. However, this exercise demonstrated that when the treasure himself is not in danger, Toothless's instinct is to rescue the victim without harming the attacker, if possible. Toothless has no thirst for blood, as was clearly seen when he initially tried to intimidate his opponent with vocalizations rather than violence."

They did the experiment a couple more times with different 'victims' and 'attackers,' including a version where Hiccup ordered Toothless to not interfere. The dragon obeyed, whining in distress and creeping behind Hiccup as if to hide. Valka gloated to the camera about the trust Toothless had in his human companion, so opponents no longer had grounds for claiming that the animal would disobey his handler.

When the 'victim' was Armando, who had very recently agreed to come back to work, Toothless still tried to rescue the groundskeeper even though the dragon had never met him before. According to Valka, this proved that Toothless even had some altruistic traits.

On their fourth attempt with different variables, Toothless could no longer tolerate all the playacting. He threw a brief tantrum and then simply carried Hiccup away from the confusing human madness, so the experiments were forced to stop. Valka didn't mind, since they'd pretty much gotten what they needed and she had started feeling bad about upsetting the poor Night Fury.

o.o.o.o.o

It took a while for Stoick to figure out why the boys seemed to love that particular bathroom so much. They took refuge in it whenever they were especially frightened or upset, and some mornings Stoick would find them sleeping in it. Hiccup always kept the door locked, which was problematic when he was hiding for excessively long periods or at inopportune times. The lock was easy to pick if necessary - until Hiccup sabotaged it. Stoick lost his temper and had the lock completely uninstalled, which sent Hiccup into both a tantrum _and_ a panic attack.

"That room is your cage, isn't it," Dr. Ikeda said when Hiccup had finally calmed down enough to listen to her. "Your safe place."

"I need the lock," Hiccup wailed into his dragon's scales. "I need the lock. I need the lock... Make him give it BACK!"

It was a long time before Hiccup was able to feel truly safe without a locked door between him and the outside world.

o.o.o.o.o

Hiccup longed to go with Valka to the Sanctuary whenever it was time for her to return there. He hated that he was stuck in this country for several reasons, one of them being that he had to testify at the trials of Drago Bludvist, Eret Hunter Sr., and their men. "I don't ever, ever want to see Bludvist or Hunter again, but Stoick says it's their 'constitutional right' to be able to look me in the face when I accuse them... I wish they had to look into _Toothless's_ face, too, he'd tell them exactly how horrible they are; but they won't even let him in the courtroom, it's not _fair_! Bludvist hurt him as much as he hurt me, he should have to look Toothless in the face, too!"

The separation issue started to become more and more of a problem, as there began to be an increased need for Hiccup to leave the house. Unfortunately, there was almost nowhere he could go while being accompanied by Toothless, and he absolutely hated the separation training.

During the first separation, when Ikeda drove Hiccup around the neighborhood for what was supposed to be just a few minutes, he had a panic attack, which she talked him through. He took longer to recover without his dragon's help, and they were gone for longer than a few minutes.

"Toothless," Hiccup said in distress, once he could breathe well enough to speak. "Toothless, we have to go back, we have to go back he's probably losing his mind, tearing the place apart, I have to tell him I'm okay, I have to-!"

"Ssshhh, Hiccup, calm down. Look, there's the house, it's right-"

Hiccup threw open the door and jumped out of the car before it had even stopped moving. He sprinted for the house, and yelled in horrified frustration when he found the front door locked. "Toothless!" he screamed, pounding on the door. "Toothless! Toothless! I'm here!"

The dragon's frantic roars were audible from inside the house, and Hiccup didn't even seem to hear Ikeda shouting at him from the driveway that she had the key and if he just waited for her to catch up-

There was a huge thump as Toothless slammed himself against the inside of the door. He roared; Hiccup, understanding what he meant, hurriedly backed away and yelled, "It's okay, Toothless!"

Before anyone could stop them, Toothless blasted the door to charred splinters. He took a single leap, thrusting with his wings for speed, and the next second, boy and dragon were all over each other, completely frantic to reassure each other of their restored proximity. Hiccup hugged him and kissed him and bit him as the dragon licked him and rubbed scent onto him and toothlessly bit him back, the two of them stumbling in little circles as if trying to get even closer.

Valka stared ruefully at the remains of the door. "You were right, I should have kept him in the cage...ohhhh, Stoick is going to be so upset when he finds out..."

Ikeda sighed as she watched the boys. "It was my mistake as well; I should have tried a different tactic first."

Hiccup had already been knocked to the ground by the time Toothless collapsed beside him in traumatized exhaustion. Even then, the pair continued to huddle close together on the front lawn for a long time, Hiccup crying quietly and whispering reassurances as Toothless bathed him, pausing from time to time to add his whimpers to Hiccup's grief.

Ikeda decided to tackle the root of the problem before trying another round of separation.

"Have you ever noticed a pattern to the panic attacks?" she asked during the next therapy session, already knowing the answer but wanting Hiccup to vocalize it himself. "Is there anything in particular that causes them?"

"Remembering the first time," Hiccup muttered. He gulped and struggled to continue. "Mostly just the first one, though; not really the second."

"Yes, I've noticed that, too. But I've also noticed a second trigger."

"..."

"What else have you noticed?"

"...I HATE when people try to make me leave Toothless."

"Yes, that is very upsetting to you, and I can certainly understand why. Can you tell me what it is, exactly, that you're afraid of when you think of leaving Toothless?"

After struggling for a little while, gasping for breath and clutching the dragon, Hiccup finally said, "I _have_ to stay with Toothless. We're supposed to be _together_."

"Why are you 'supposed' to be together? What will happen if you're not together?"

She let him cry for a while, then gently asked the question again.

"They hurt me," Hiccup finally gasped out.

"You were abused because you'd been taken away from your dragon's protection."

"Y-Yes," Hiccup sobbed, then refused to speak again until she ended the session.

The next time the topic was brought up, Ikeda pointed out, "You said 'He left me' just now. Did you notice?"

"What?"

"When you were talking about the first incident, when Toothless was tranquilized. You said 'he left me,' as if Toothless abandoned you on purpose."

"He DIDN'T!"

"I know. But don't you think your phrasing is a bit indicative?"

"He didn't leave me! He couldn't help it! They _made_ him fall asleep, it wasn't his fault!"

"Yes, Hiccup, that's true. But I think maybe, even though you know better intellectually, there's a part of you that _feels_ as if Toothless abandoned you when you needed him most. It wasn't his fault, you're very right, but you can't help _feeling_ like it's his fault."

"It's not fair," Hiccup sobbed, turning his face away when Toothless tried to lick him. "It's not your fault, Toothless...it's not your fault, it's not, it's _not_...!"

The next time they returned to the subject, Ikeda said in response to a conclusion Hiccup had reached, "It's very good that you feel that way now, Hiccup; that's excellent progress. But you know, I wonder if we're finished yet."

Hiccup tensed.

"Don't you think there was someone who truly did leave you behind? A guardian who didn't protect you? Maybe that's why it felt like such a betrayal when they incapacitated Toothless, because it didn't feel like the first time you had been abandoned."

Hiccup swallowed as he realized what she was referring to. Ikeda waited. Hiccup finally ground out, "It's _her_ fault. Everything is _her fault_."

"Whose fault, Hiccup?"

"You KNOW who! _Her_! My _mother_. I _hate_ her."

"What she did hurt you very badly, didn't it."

They weren't able to continue during that session, but when they were, Hiccup cried and journaled and drew things and tore things and burned things and shouted and allowed Ikeda to hug him, one of the very few times he tolerated a human's comfort. "She left me," he whispered. "Why did she leave me? Why? Why?"

"Your mother was very sick, Hiccup," Ikeda said softly. "What she did was very wrong and she has no excuse for it, but maybe it will be easier for you to forgive her if you can understand how much she was hurting, too."

Once Hiccup was able to process and deal with the pain of those memories, the panic attacks stopped. He still absolutely hated leaving his dragon behind, but at least now during the separations, he was depressed and cranky and withdrawn rather than desperately suffering. Which meant that the next problem to deal with was Toothless, since the dragon's separation anxiety had a different source.

It broke Hiccup's heart whenever he returned to find Toothless wailing or despondently grieving, and he couldn't seem to make the dragon understand why he kept leaving or that he was determined to always, always return. "I'll come back to you," he sobbed, hugging the dragon tightly as Toothless made those horrible desperate whimpers. "I'll come back to you, I promise. I _promise_!"

One time, he screamed at Ikeda in frustration, "Of COURSE he throws a fit whenever I leave! We've been together our _entire lives_ , the only times I ever left his sight were when they dragged me off to rape me!"

"Exactly, Hiccup. That is precisely the problem."

"What?"

"Toothless has learned to associate being separated from you with seeing you wounded in body and soul when you return to him," Ikeda explained. "You are very precious to him, and he thinks you will come to harm if you leave him. You reinforce this belief by returning to him so frantic and desperate that he thinks you've barely escaped an attack."

Hiccup made a face, not liking that she was right.

"Let's try something. The next time you return from a separation, act as happy as you can, and greet him with excitement. Teach him that your return is a reward, not a relief."

Hiccup completely forgot to try it the next time. The second time, Ikeda reminded him before they pulled into the driveway, and Hiccup made an attempt at sounding happy when he greeted Toothless, though it sounded very fake to him. He got better at it with practice.

" _Hey_ , bud! _Hey_ ~ Toothless, hey! Yeah, did you miss me? Did you miss me~? I missed YOU, I am soooooooo happy to see you!"

It didn't happen overnight, but they were persistent, and Toothless gradually improved. They were able to stop locking him up in the cage whenever Hiccup left. Though Valka reported that the dragon was quiet and inactive and sad whenever Hiccup was gone, Toothless seemed to get more joyful and excited rather than frantic when he greeted Hiccup upon the boy's return.

They did experiment with having the boys try to communicate long-distance, but recorded videos of Hiccup seemed to confuse and upset Toothless. The dragon initially reacted better to live feeds, but he still quickly became distressed and unhappy, and would eventually throw the same kind of tantrums.

"It's because he can't smell you through a video screen," Valka explained sadly. "I suspect that he doesn't process the digital images of you the same way a human would, either, and I'm sure he can detect disturbing differences in your voice as it's being conveyed through technology. When he can see you and hear you, but it looks and sounds wrong and he can't smell you at _all_ , the poor thing must feel like a human would who's being haunted by a ghost."

So they gave up on the video idea and just concentrated on lengthening the separation periods. The boys were eventually able to handle one hour easily, and two or three hours without getting overly distressed.

Hiccup still hated leaving, but grew resigned to it as long as the reason was justified. When he did set foot out of the house, it was for important errands such as a much-needed dentist visit and a trip to the courthouse to be familiarized with the setup and procedures. He refused to get his hair cut until Valka offered to do it herself - she was one of the very few people he trusted enough so far to handle sharp blades close to his head.

 _To be continued..._

Author's Notes: I have no idea what sort of techniques/etc. professional therapists use. All my knowledge in that area comes from personal experience in my own life and the lives of my loved ones and people I know.

To clarify about forgiveness, it's not just a religious idea; it has secular relevance as well. To quote the Mayo Clinic Web site, "forgiveness can lessen [the wound's] grip on you and help you focus on other, more positive parts of your life. . . . Forgiveness doesn't mean that you deny the other person's responsibility for hurting you, and it doesn't minimize or justify the wrong. You can forgive the person without excusing the act. . . . forgiveness is possible - even if reconciliation isn't." Forgiveness is important for your _own_ emotional health.


	9. Chapter 9 - Routine, part 2

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 9 - Routine, part 2 (rough draft)**

There was one issue which Hiccup very determinedly avoided during therapy. Ikeda broached it once again by referencing a recent news story that had deeply upset Hiccup, about a man's dog that was euthanized after it attacked a neighbor.

The discussion soon veered away from the specific news story to animal attacks in general, and then to the laws governing animal attacks on humans, and then to Toothless. "He's not dangerous!"

"He can be quite friendly, and obviously he loves you very much. But he _is_ a Night Fury, Hiccup."

"It doesn't matter," Hiccup said flatly.

"Hiccup, you seem agitated right now," Ikeda observed, subtly reminding him that the surge of negative emotion indicated an unresolved issue.

His breathing quickened as his expression twisted with outrage. Then he blinked and suddenly went from angrily panicked to sullen and almost disdainful. " _Yeah_. I keep remembering when they raped me. I hate them _so much_."

Ikeda let him talk until she had determined that he was indeed using the topic as a decoy. As damaging and traumatic as the abuse had been, it was something Hiccup had already processed at length, in comparison to this more hidden fear that he always refused to let her touch. "Hiccup, I know what you're doing."

"What?" Hiccup snapped.

"I've noticed that you tend to act very defensive whenever a certain subject starts to come up."

"You're always _attacking_ me! You're always _prying_ into me, making me _remember_ , and it _hurts_ -"

"You use every weapon in your arsenal - distraction, tears, anger, insults, everything you can think of. Anything that will save you from having to talk about it."

"I need a break!" he shouted. "You said I could have a break whenever I asked, you _said_!"

"Though I think now that maybe this time it's not yourself you're trying to save."

"I HATE YOU!" Hiccup screamed, leaping to his feet. Toothless was staring at him in confusion and worry, rather than acting protective as he often did when Hiccup was truly frightened or grieving.

"You often respond well when it's your own pain. You eventually stop resisting or hiding, and let yourself be vulnerable. But this - it's like you get _more_ fiercely protective instead of less."

"Hey Toothless," Hiccup cooed, pointedly ignoring Ikeda. "Hey bud, you hungry? You wanna go play?"

Toothless grumbled at him. Hiccup tried to pounce on him, but the dragon made a rare refusal to play. Instead, Toothless pinned Hiccup to the floor and glared at him.

Looking anxious, Hiccup wrapped his arms around the dragon's neck and tugged him close, whispering. Toothless huffed and rested his head on Hiccup's chest, rolling his eyes toward Ikeda for a moment before closing them.

"Toothless, get off," Hiccup pleaded, but the dragon merely sighed.

"Hiccup," Ikeda said quietly, "I'm sure that Toothless would never hurt you on purpose, but did he ever hurt you on accident?"

"No!" Hiccup shouted angrily. "Toothless never hurt me, _duh_!"

After studying him for a moment, Ikeda suggested, "Did he ever hurt anyone else?"

"NO!" Hiccup screamed.

There. The panic flaring in his eyes suggested that she had hit home. Hiccup thrashed and struggled; Toothless, alert again, was staring down at Hiccup in surprise and worry, but didn't let him go.

"Hiccup," Ikeda said gently, "we won't let anything bad happen to Toothless. But this does seem to be an issue for you, and we need to work through it."

"Get off me, you stupid dragon!" Hiccup was yelling, drowning her out. "Get _off_!"

Whining, Toothless finally shifted until Hiccup wriggled free and started to hit him. Toothless barked in surprise, then growled.

"Shut up!" Hiccup screamed. "Shut _up_! Stupid dragon!"

Toothless turned his back and stalked into a corner and crouched down with his tail wrapped around himself.

Hiccup let out a sob. "Toothless..." He ran to the dragon and climbed over him and tried to nuzzle him. Then he wrapped his arms around Toothless's neck and hid his face as he cried. "Toothless, I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, _I'm_ stupid and horrible, not you...it's not your fault...it's _not your fault_..."

Toothless licked him and whimpered.

Things didn't go much better when Ikeda tried again in a different session. "I really do think we need to talk about this, Hiccup."

"*SIGH* Fiiiine... Here, I'll show you the scars. This is from when he whipped me this one time when I-"

"Did Toothless ever shoot anyone?"

Hiccup grabbed the first item he could reach, hurled it across the room, and stormed away.

Ikeda experimented with blocking Hiccup's escape route the next time she brought up the topic. Cornered, he lunged at her, snarling like an animal as he dug his fingernails into her neck like claws.

There was a long pause. Toothless whined and nudged Hiccup, uncertainly trying to push him away. Ikeda sat very still. Hiccup knelt over her, breathing hard as his expression slowly changed. "I. Don't. Want. To. Talk. About. This."

Her voice was very calm and measured. "You would do anything to protect Toothless. But there's nothing to protect him from, Hiccup."

"Shut up," Hiccup hissed. "Toothless never did anything wrong."

"Hiccup, let's discuss this like two human beings."

He looked uncertain and nervous.

"Take your hands away from my neck."

"...Is this inappropriate?" he said, in a tone that indicated he already knew the answer.

"Very."

"Are you going to tell Stoick?"

She knew what he wanted, that he was willing to pay any price to protect what was most precious to him. "Yes."

He nodded and withdrew. When he tried to lean back against Toothless, the dragon sidled out of reach. The boys frowned at each other.

Ikeda cleared her throat. "To clarify, I will report to Stoick as usual, but whether he punishes you or not is none of my concern."

"I _attacked_ you," Hiccup snapped.

"You did, and that was wrong, but we're not going to worry about that right now."

"We should! I shouldn't have done that, I was _wrong_. That was very _inappropriate_. It's probably because I got raised like a dragon, perhaps sometimes I think I'm a dragon, too. I feel scared and lash out. I don't like to talk about my feelings, so I respond out of fear instead of facing my feelings head-on. I should make a list of affirmations to say every day. 'Number One, I am human. Number Two, I'm worth just as much as any other human. Number Three, I should talk about my feelings instead of trying to claw people's throats out when I'm mad.'"

She had a difficult time suppressing her laughter as he imitated her. He even had a mischievous twinkle in his eyes by the end, as he saw that she recognized the humor.

"True enough, but unfortunately, you're trying to distract me again, Hiccup."

The amusement in his expression crumpled. "You know what happened to Tiana?!" he suddenly burst out. "She hurt me, and she killed Jeffries. She _didn't_ mean to hurt me, it was just because I was stupid and got in the way and Toothless couldn't save me in time; but she was really trying to hurt Jeffries, not me! He whipped her and he burned her with a cigarette, he _deserved_ it, he pretty much _asked_ her to attack him - it was _his_ fault, but they killed _her_! They shot her, they shot her _over and over_ again until she stopped moving - and even after she was dead, two of them came and _beat her_ , there was so much blood, they beat her so much she _didn't even look like herself anymore_...!"

Tears streaming down his face, he described the tiger's mutilation in detail. Ikeda listened with an aching heart, not interrupting now that Hiccup was genuinely sharing something with her again.

"I'm so glad she was dead! I miss her and I loved her she was so beautiful and she'd make this ka-ka-ka sound at me when she was happy to see me, but I'm glad she was dead because they hurt her _so bad_ , they tore her up, she was almost in two pieces when they finally took her away, I'm so glad she was already dead and didn't feel it!" He gave a wordless cry of grief, wrapped in Toothless's comforting embrace.

After a long time, when Hiccup had finally calmed down enough to speak again, he peeked out from under the dragon's wing and said in a low voice, "Toothless never killed anyone. _Never_." His expression was pleading.

Ikeda licked her lips, torn, knowing that Toothless probably wouldn't be harmed even if the truth came out, but wondering if it was worth the risk. He was such a rare and valuable animal, he'd surely been provoked, and it seemed unlikely that the victim's (or had there been more than one...?!) family would come forward and try to retaliate... Still, she could see why Hiccup was so frantic to avoid any risk at all.

"Well," she finally said, "even if he didn't, you still seem to get unduly upset at the idea. I think we should work on that."

"...So you're gonna shrink me until I stop getting upset?" he said guardedly.

"Ideally, yes."

That was the only issue that Hiccup worked through while speaking entirely in a sort of code, never confirming or explicitly stating anything that might endanger his beloved dragon.

 _To be concluded..._


	10. Chapter 10 - Family

**_Dragon Treasure_** **, a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **Chapter 10 - Family (rough draft)**

 **A/N: THERE ARE 1,400 NEW WORDS IN THIS CHAPTER. Please scroll down a little until you can see the new material.**

o.o.o

When the investigation into Hiccup's background had been completed, Stoick came home early and called him into the living room, looking serious. "Sit down, Hiccup."

"What happened? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, Hiccup. Or, at least, nothing that hasn't already been wrong for a long time. We found out all we could about your family," Stoick said quietly. "Hiccup...none of it is good news."

Hiccup waited, absently stroking Toothless.

"One of the things we were able to confirm is that you are indeed twelve years old, born on February 29th. The name on your birth certificate is Hadley Rendoun; the surname is your mother's. She wasn't married when she had you, she was only 15 years old. Your father has been in jail for the past several years on drug charges. He claims to have no recollection of your mother, and it's likely that he never knew you existed."

"As far as I'm concerned, he never existed, either," Hiccup muttered.

Stoick gave him a sympathetic look and continued. "Your mother became addicted to drugs as a teenager. Almost two years after you were born, her parents reported the two of you missing. There are no records of your mother after that time; she was never found."

"I told you, she's dead."

"That does seem very likely... As for the rest of it, your grandfather passed away two years ago. Your grandmother is currently living in a state-funded facility, suffering from late-stage Alzheimer's disease. ...That's all we were able to find." Stoick sighed deeply. "I'm afraid that none of your biological family will be able to take care of you. I'm so sorry, Hiccup."

"...Thank you for telling me," Hiccup said quietly. He nuzzled Toothless, who nuzzled him back and chirred softly.

"Hiccup, now that we know your real name - do you want us to start calling you 'Hadley'? Or do you want to continue using 'Hiccup,' or even choose a different name altogether?"

Hiccup gave him a startled look. "My name?"

"Yes. It's your choice, Hiccup. Some children choose to change their names, to put some distance between themselves and a name they associate with abuse. Is that what you want to do? 'Hiccup' is what they called you at the circus, isn't it?"

"It's my name." Hiccup's breath was starting to come a little short again, and Toothless went into his calming routine. "M-My name, it's Hiccup, my name is-"

"All right, all right, lad! We can keep calling you Hiccup, don't worry. I just wanted to ask, since it's a very important issue to some children."

"My name is Hiccup... Toothless knows people are talking about me when they say my name." Hiccup hugged the dragon tightly, who licked him.

Stoick took a deep breath. "By the way, Hiccup...there's something we've been meaning to speak to you about... How would you feel about the idea of changing your name from Hadley 'Hiccup' Rendoun to Hadley 'Hiccup' Vast?"

Hiccup said nothing, his only response being a small frown of confusion.

"Er...what I mean to say is- Ach, Val should be here for this; VALKA!" Stoick yelled as he got to his feet, nervously unable to meet the boy's eyes.

After a moment, his wife poked her head in from the garage. "What is it?"

"Val, please come here, I...er, we have a certain proposal for Hiccup that, er... I mean, we should ask him together."

Her eyes lit up. "Now, that, I'll _gladly_ be interrupted for!" She tugged the kerchief off her hair, dropping it onto a countertop and her gloves along with it. She came to the boys smiling, kneeling down to caress Toothless with one hand as she grasped Hiccup's hand with the other. Seeing the wary expression on Hiccup's face, she asked, "What's wrong, love?"

"I don't want to change my name."

"You won't have to change your name, dear!" She glanced at Toothless and smiled. "Hiccup, _Hiccup_ , I love you~" she sing-songed, bringing up his hand to give it a little lick as she smiled knowingly at Toothless. "Hiccup is a treasure~"

Hiccup smiled in relief to see that she understood. Toothless indicated his pleasure and approval to Valka, recognizing the human sound-name for his boy and the affection Valka was expressing to him.

" _Ahem_ , anyway," Stoick said. "Hiccup, you, er, know that you're currently in foster care, right?"

Hiccup looked at him with an appropriate expression for one who had just been asked something stunningly obvious.

"What I mean is, you're eligible for adoption now that your birth family- I mean, not _officially_ yet, but that'll get taken care of soon."

"Adoption?!"

Stoick's face softened. "Yes, Hiccup."

Hiccup yanked his hand out of Valka's and shot to his feet, looking panicked; Toothless jerked into a surprised half-crouch, trying to figure out the source of the boy's alarm and dismay.

"Y-You can't get rid of us now, you could BEFORE, you should have done it BEFORE, but now you're, Toothless, he, you two and Marta and a little bit Will and Alen, you're, you _belong_ to us!" His face twisted in sudden anger. "You don't have to belong to _me_ , that's _fine_ , I don't _care_ ; but you belong to TOOTHLESS," he was screaming now, ignoring all their attempts to calm him down, and Toothless was whining in wide-eyed distress, "you can't _send us away_ , he thinks you're _his_ , if you send us off he'll try to get back to you and he won't understand why he can't have you anymore and I can't explain it to him and he'll _cry_ and I _won't let you do that to him_ -!"

"You're OURS!" Valka finally managed to make herself heard. Hiccup broke off and stared at her. "You're _ours_ , love. That's what we meant. _We_ want to adopt you, Stoick and I want you to become our son."

Hiccup gave her that wary look again, still backed into a corner with his arms around the dragon. "Toothless stays."

"Yes, love, of course."

"Well," Stoick muttered, "we've managed to hold off those spiteful vultures _so far_ , at least..."

"We're keeping Toothless," Valka said firmly. "No matter what we have to do or where we have to go, the _four_ of us will always be a family. After all, we're flock now," she smiled a little mischievously at her husband, "with our beloved queen who will always take care of us."

Stoick grumbled. He'd been simultaneously touched and worried to learn months before that Toothless apparently now considered him and Valka and Marta to be his and Hiccup's flockmates. However, Stoick had not been thrilled that the specific scent on him marked him as the 'queen,' even when Valka explained that it just meant he was the flock leader.

Hiccup leaned on Toothless, looking unhappy. "You're gonna adopt me?"

"Do you have any objections?" Stoick asked roughly.

Hiccup fidgeted and didn't say anything.

"Hiccup," Valka asked gently, "what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Hiccup mumbled. Then he took a deep breath, came around Toothless, and settled down by the dragon's side, so that he was closer to the Vasts but still had a wing shielding him. "You're gonna make me your son?" he said guardedly. "I'll belong to you _forever_?"

"Yes, sweetheart. We want you. And Toothless," Valka added before he could say it.

"Do you want us?" Stoick hadn't meant to word it like that, but he couldn't unsay it now.

"Yeah," Hiccup mumbled, stroking the dragon's hide to soothe himself. Toothless nuzzled him, hoping that he felt better now and wouldn't suddenly spring into distress again. "Yeah, I...duh." He glanced up at them. "So we just...keep doing what we've been doing?"

"Well...I suppose so, at least until your part in the trials is over."

"Okay." Hiccup climbed to his feet, said _"Come with me"_ to Toothless in dragon language, and started ambling toward the back door. "We're gonna go play outside."

"Hiccup," Valka prompted, "come give us a hug first. We just told you some news that makes all of us happy, we should celebrate together."

Hiccup cocked his head. "Can we make a cake?"

Valka laughed. "Yes, dear, we can make a cake."

Hiccup obligingly came over to exchange hugs with his parents-to-be, then scampered away to find Marta. "Martaaaa, we're baking a cake! Come help!"

"Very busy," the woman said as she continued to fold clean laundry without pausing. "Hiccup can bake cake, very smart boy, you and dragon bake cake with no me."

"Really?! I can make it all by myself this time?!"

Seeing his glee, Marta paused and wagged her finger in warning. " _Careful_! No break my good kitchen things, no waste good food, no sugar for dragon!"

Hiccup saluted. "Yes, ma'am." He galloped away, not seeming to notice Stoick and Valka as he passed but then pulling out three aprons when he reached the kitchen. "Wash your hands," he ordered, "no matter what you cook, that always comes first; wash your hands!"

Valka lovingly stroked a hand over his hair as she went over to the sink.

"So," Stoick said, almost anxiously, "we can start the adoption process as soon as possible, right? And you don't mind changing your surname to Vast?"

"I'm still Hiccup."

"Well, yes. Hiccup Vast."

"Yeah." Hiccup was standing on his toes on the stepstool, peering into a cupboard. "Hey, chocolate for sure, but I can't decide if I want cinnamon in it or not. What do _you_ want?"

"Er...it doesn't matter... Do you really-?!" Before Stoick could finish trying to get a more typical response from Hiccup concerning the adoption proposal, Valka laid a hand on his arm and gave him a meaningful look.

"He's happy," she said quietly, "look at him. He just doesn't see it the way an ordinary child would, you know? As far as he's concerned, we've been his flockmates for months; adoption won't change anything except some paperwork."

"Don't worry~" Hiccup was cooing down at Toothless, "I will make a fish treat for you~ so don't get jealous when we hog all the sugar for ourselves, okay?" He absently glanced over at Stoick and Valka, smiling.

Stoick smiled back, then murmured to Valka when Hiccup resumed collecting ingredients and cookware. "Things will change _eventually_."

"Then we'll just handle it when it does," Valka said soothingly. "We are flock. Er, family."

Hiccup glanced over his shoulder. "Why are you guys just standing around?! Come help! 'No help, no eat!'" he quoted Marta, from some of the early cooking lessons she had given him.

"Yes, sir!" Valka moved over to the boy and Stoick followed, standing on either side of Hiccup as Toothless poked his nose over the counter to sniff at the preparations. "What would you like us to do?"

Hiccup gave instructions, and they spent the rest of the afternoon baking and cleaning up and resting and eating together.

Stoick, watching his wife and their two wards thoughtfully, thought he understood what Valka had meant, that they had already been a family for some time now. Stoick set down his plate and gathered Valka and Hiccup into an embrace, leaving enough room for Toothless to lean into them. "I love you," Stoick said gruffly.

"Uh huh," Hiccup said casually, and Valka kissed her husband's cheek. Hiccup suddenly cocked his head. "Hey, so if you're going to adopt me, do I start...calling you 'Mom' and 'Dad'...?"

"Do you not want to?"

"I'll think about it." Hiccup wriggled free and tugged Stoick's plate closer. "Hey, _Dad_ , Person Named Stoick Who I Might Or Might Not Call Dad, let me draw a fish on the rest of your cake, pleeeeaaase?"

Stoick smiled and handed over a tube of icing.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: **I apparently royally screwed up without even realizing that I'd made a mistake (I can't even** ** _remember_** **the last time that happened...), so here's the deal:**

 **PLEASE DON'T THINK OF THIS FIC AS A MULTI-CHAPTER. It's an AU** ** _series_** **that just** ** _happened_** **to be introduced as a multi-chapter, which is now complete. (The previous series that I posted in this way were debuted as one-shots, which might be why readers didn't mind the atypical storytelling style as much.) FROM NOW ON, ANY "DRAGON TREAUSRE" STORIES THAT I WRITE AND POST WILL BE STANDALONE, NON-CHRONOLOGICAL ONE-SHOTS AND VIGNETTES. If you've read** ** _Stepsiblings_** **, you'll know what I'm talking about; if you haven't, I guess you can try comparing it to my "Dragon Queen" stories.**

I'm not sure what else to say, just that I was really taken aback by all the concrit on "Apology" and "Epilogue" (thank you, by the way!) because I'm _used_ to at least _recognizing_ when I've screwed up. But apparently, I did a terrible job of ending the main _Dragon Treasure_ story, and it wasn't just a matter of one person's opinion, either; there were several people on both AO3 and FFN who all gave the same concrit, and I'm horrified because it _blindsided_ me. I had _no idea_ that the ending was a problem at all, much less _that big_ of a problem, so now my confidence in my own editing skills has really been shaken.

Anyway, so I've done some re-arranging. I took the last scene of chapter 9, separated it into a new chapter, and continued it so that it now concludes the main _Dragon Treasure_ story. "Apology" is now just a random vignette set in this AU, it's not part of the main story. The memoir thing that had been the epilogue is now just an outtake for anyone curious to see the loose ends tied up. Ideally, I'll eventually write enough one-shots/vignettes that take place in this universe for the memoir to become unnecessary, but at least you're not left wondering until then.

I'm really sorry, guys. I'd like to blame this on how horrible it's been trying to move, everything that's been going wrong and how frazzled and sleep-deprived and food-deprived I've been the last few days-

-but I can't, since I wrote "Apology" and the memoir at least a month ago, _before_ the move. That's why I'm so upset with myself, because I usually NOTICE this kind of stuff! Up until now, whenever I posted crap, I always at least _recognized_ it as crap; so I can't understand how I completely and totally missed this huge storytelling flaw ._.


	11. Apology

**_Dragon Treasure: Apology_** **(rough draft), a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

 **A/N: Takes place eight years after the main story.**

o.o.o

Since Hiccup was in the country for a seminar, he called up Seth and arranged to meet with him and his wife for dinner.

"By the way," Hiccup added before he hung up, "just a heads up, I was planning to bring along a guest, unless you or Jennifer have any objection."

 _"Hah, as if I'd ever object to seeing Toothless!"_

"Oh, not Toothless, I meant-" Hiccup had been thinking of his dragon's presence as a given. "I mean, he _is_ coming, but I meant someone else. My fiancée, actually."

 _"Oh! No, sure, that's cool; I didn't know you were engaged! Congrats. Hey, speaking of guests, I happen to have invited one along as well. You don't mind, do you?"_

"How much does he know? Or, she, whatever."

 _"He knows everything."_

"...Oh."

 _"No worries, Hiccup. Trust me, it'll be fine."_

Hiccup did trust Seth, at least for this sort of thing. "All right. I'll see you tomorrow at 8:00, then?"

 _"Yup. Marta's, right?"_

"Obviously."

o.o.o.o.o

Marta's restaurant was the only one where Toothless was welcome. Hiccup still had to wait in the van until he'd called Marta and gotten the go-ahead, at which point he and Astrid sneaked Toothless through a back door where Marta was waiting for them. It probably wouldn't be good for business if the customers knew that there was a dragon dining in the same building.

The woman greeted them warmly, hugging both Hiccup and Astrid. Toothless was excited to see her, and she looked happy as she cuddled and baby-talked at the dragon. "Room is ready," Marta finally said, ushering them toward the special events room. "You are first ones here, I will bring appe-tize for you."

"Thanks, Marta."

Seth and Jennifer didn't keep them waiting long. As soon as they entered, Toothless eagerly loped over to them, and was greeted by Seth with affectionate enthusiasm. Jennifer smiled, but kept her distance on her husband's other side. "And this must be the fiancée!" Seth exclaimed when he straightened up again.

"Astrid Hofferson," she introduced herself, holding out a hand to shake. "It's nice to meet you."

"Likewise." With a quick wink at Hiccup, Seth introduced Jennifer to Astrid, and the group made their way back to the table, chattering amicably.

Seth's guest was late. They were already starting on their meal when the door opened and a young man stepped inside. Toothless immediately growled and moved in front of Hiccup, which was alarming. The newcomer froze as soon as he set eyes on the dragon.

"Heeey, there you are!" Seth called cheerfully. "I was just starting to think you wouldn't make it."

"What's _he_ doing here?" Jennifer hissed.

"Ssshh, Jen, it's all right," Seth said soothingly. "He wanted to meet Hiccup, and I thought he deserved the chance."

"The dragon's here?" the young man said weakly.

Hiccup thought he looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't place him. "Toothless, Hush." The dragon laid his head in Hiccup's lap, still glaring.

"Hiccup," Seth said, watching him, "this is Eret Hunter."

"What?!" At Hiccup's alarm, Toothless straightened back up and flared his wings; Astrid, recognizing the name, stood up and set a hand on the back of her fiancé's chair, leaning over him protectively.

" _Junior_ ," the young man burst out. "Eret Hunter _Junior_. I'm...I'm the son, not _him_."

"Toothless, Hush," Hiccup murmured unhappily, starting to stroke the dragon's scales to soothe himself.

"I won't stay long," Eret said quickly. "I just...I talked to Sasheena a few months ago, and Kieran wouldn't- I mean, Jacob wouldn't see me, and I've met these two already, and...well, you're always in Kenya, and the few times you're here, it just doesn't seem right to approach you when you're-"

"What do you want?" Astrid snapped.

"I just wanted to apologize." Eret's eyes were full of pain. "I wanted to tell you that I had nothing, absolutely _nothing_ to do with my father - he abandoned me when I was five years old, and I never heard from him again until eight years ago when the news came out. But I still wanted to look you in the face and apologize on his behalf, because I know he's not sorry for what he's done but _someone should be_."

There was a long pause, then Hiccup said quietly, "Come and sit down, there's a place for you." He indicated the setting for Seth's guest.

"No, I- No, I have to go, I just wanted-"

Hiccup stood up and approached. Eret licked his lips nervously and backed up a step. Hiccup set a hand on his shoulder and said, "I wouldn't want the same name as a person like that, either. But you are not _him_ , and you've done nothing to be sorry for or ashamed of." He glanced at Toothless, then, to Eret's alarm, nuzzled the man gently.

Toothless relaxed and padded closer to nudge Eret's hip.

"What is he doing?!" Eret squeaked, clutching at Hiccup as if trying to stop himself from swatting the dragon away.

"He's marking you. Don't worry, he won't hurt you, he's just deciding that you're probably not a threat." Toothless was busily rubbing scent, too subtle for humans to detect without a DO-graph, onto Eret's clothing. "I bet he could tell when you walked in that you're closely related to Hunter - biologically, anyway - and he knew that Hunter was a threat, so he associates your family scent with danger. But he can tell that you're not angry at us and he can see that you haven't tried to hurt us, so this is his way of changing his mind."

Toothless yawned and ambled back to the table, dropping into a casual sprawl at Astrid's feet.

"Come on," Hiccup said gently, tugging Eret toward his chair.

"I...well, I- suppose I _could_ stay for just a little while..."

o.o.o

Author's Notes: I realized belatedly that it might be considered insulting to refer to the entire continent rather than the specific country. ^^; Fixed it in this vignette (small homage to my favorite dragon book), though I haven't yet in previous chapters.

So, yes, Hiccup actually does start dating someone and ends up in a serious relationship with her - AFTER he's a little older and has had some time to heal.


	12. OUTTAKE: Memoir

**_Dragon Treasure_** **OUTTAKE: "Memoir" (rough draft), a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

Excerpt from the fourth draft of _Dragon Treasure: A Memoir_ , by Hadley Vast (with Guadalupe Hernandez):

My parents wanted to combine their wedding vow renewal ceremony with my adoption ceremony. The four of us were joined together as a family at the same time, and even though we'd already been living together for over a year, there was a moment when I could _feel_ the change. That feeling sort of came and went over the next year or two before finally 'sticking' for good - when I do have it, I can feel to my bones how connected I am to my parents, and how they see Toothless as my brother rather than just a pet or an ESA.

The feeling about Stoick and Valka being my parents might have taken a while to stick, but I've _always_ felt like Toothless is my brother. I never had a name for it until I met Ruffnut and Tuffnut Thorston (not their real names, by the way; they were really enthusiastic about picking their own pseudonyms for this book), but seeing their bond was what made me realize that Toothless is essentially my twin. There are some ways in which I love him more than my own wife. (Yes, I said that; yes, my wife already knew that before we got married; no, Toothless and I have never had 'carnal relations' with each other, as Shane would say; and yes, people ask about kinky dragon sex. Like, a lot. NO, people. I said he's my _twin_ , not my incestuous reptilian lover.)

Speaking of my wife, her own book is coming out in a couple of months, shameless plug. Go buy it when it does - if Astrid had to grow up being brainwashed by a religious fanatic anti-dragon hate group, the least fate could do is give her some monetary compensation for it, right?

And I'm sure all you romantics out there will be thrilled by our love story, where she and my dragon nearly killed each other and then I got kidnapped and tortured until my left leg was damaged beyond repair before Astrid, realizing that her parents are wackos, managed to help me escape. The marriage proposal didn't come until years later, and even the romance part took us a while, but I promise there's some kissing eventually. Astrid is a fantastic kisser.

All that started when Astrid and I were fifteen, and it's all in her book, so I won't spoil it here. I just wanted to say that even those nut jobs can't make me regret living here at the reserve. We know now how they broke in, and we made sure it will never happen again.

Dad transferred to a different position that would allow him to work long-distance, then eventually got hired here for a job that's similar to his old one. I know what it's like to be helpless and trapped, and I know what it's like to have someone like my dad fighting for you. It's an incredible feeling to know that someone like him has got your back. I'm glad that he gets to stick with his life's mission and also be with us at the Sanctuary - he and Mom never want to have to live apart again, and I like being able to still be close to both of them, too.

Like I said before, I'm a dracologist now and get to work right alongside my mother, doing what we love most. The reserve is pretty much the only place in the world where Toothless and I would have been allowed to stay together, and this is where he's _finally_ been able to meet other dragons, become part of a proper flock, find a mate, and start having babies. (My little dragon nephew Daydream is _super-cute_ , I adore him, Toothless and Empress and even Daydream himself get exasperated with me sometimes for doting on him so much. Because of the way dragon culture works, I love that kid more than his own parents do.) There's room for us fly as much as we want, and it's because of Toothless that we discovered the world's last remaining Night Fury flock (that we know of).

We were all so afraid that Toothless was the last of his kind, but he's not. They're clever and stayed hidden, and the only reason they showed themselves to me (and my camera) in the beginning is because of Toothless. With a very few exceptions (like Pinecone, who's unusually friendly and trusting for a Night Fury), the Furies wouldn't let any humans other me and Mom and, like, two other people even see them clearly. For a long time (and with Pine being an exception again), I was the only one they would touch and 'talk' to without being shy and jumpy, and even now, their 'list of approved humans' is pretty short. Mom's theory is that they see me as an honorary dragon, thanks to the scent-marks Toothless is always coating me with.

By the way, no, Empress and Daydream are not going on tour. None of our dragons are, for the record. Please keep in mind that they are _wild animals_ , the only reason they tolerate us reserve people is because we can speak enough of their language for them to know that we're not a threat.

Toothless is the only dragon we can trust to be able to handle fairly large numbers of humans staring at him and getting close to him and touching him and talking to him. Dragons are kind, amazing creatures, but we are not going to put any of them but Toothless on a stage, for legal reasons if nothing else. Toothless has grown up around humans his whole life, he's got a human for a treasure, he can understand us better than any other dragon can.

Still, I can't say that going on tour is our favorite thing. Occasionally the reserve is desperate enough that Toothless and I have to get on a plane and give a few seminars and do a few performances and sign lots and lots of stuff and pose for lots and lots of pictures, but, again, not really our favorite thing. Toothless may have grown up in a cage, but he doesn't belong in one. He's happiest in the Sanctuary, and I am, too.

Lupe (Guadalupe Hernandez, that's her name on the cover next to mine, she's helping me write this book) says that I should tie up all the loose ends here.

My birth mother was never found, and honestly, I don't think about her much.

I went to visit my biological grandmother once before she died. Because of her illness, it wasn't a very pleasant experience, but I did want to see her while I still could. I was given some of her things after she passed away, and I know that she and my grandfather loved me even though I don't remember them.

My birth father keeps trying to reach out to me ever since he heard I'm some kind of celebrity, but I know what he's really like. I went to visit him once, too, and the look in his eyes, above his fake smile, reminded me of Drago Bludvist. I know what sort of man he is, and I don't want him anywhere near my family.

We visit my brother Henry's grave at least once a year (and my grandparents' graves, too). I never knew him, but I feel a connection with him. We were born in the same month of the same year, and we were both preemies. Sometimes I feel slightly guilty that I survived and he didn't.

I know that Mom and Dad didn't adopt me to replace him, though some people accuse them of that and I'm sure their grief at losing him was a factor. I'm pretty sure they would have adopted me anyway, even if Henry had lived. I know that Mom didn't just adopt me because I'm a dragon treasure, either, even though I tease her about that (and people have accused her of that, too...) and it was definitely a factor. Just a factor, though. The warmth in her eyes when she looks at me makes me certain that she would have loved Henry and me together just as much as she loves us both now.

Sasheena was two months shy of being a legal adult when the circus was raided. She was an illegal immigrant, but because of various circumstances, she was granted asylum. She went through a whole different hell in her birth country before ending up in the circus; I feel like I understand her a little better than I did before dad rescued us. All I've really heard about her since the trials ended is whatever ends up in pop culture news.

Kieran wants nothing to do with us, and he's changed his name to Jacob. Anything that reminds him of the circus is too painful, and I don't blame him for cutting all ties. I have no idea where he is or what he's doing now, but I hope he's found some peace.

Ruby's name is Jennifer now, though 'Ruby' was always an alias to begin with. (For the record, I don't know her birth name and I'm not going to pry.) She and Seth got married pretty much as soon as she turned 18. Seth invited me to the wedding, and I went because Toothless was invited, too. I don't think Jennifer particularly liked the idea of hanging out with other circus rescues, but she tolerated us well enough.

Seth still keeps in touch. (I _suspect_ he might even still talk to Jacob and Sasheena sometimes.) We're almost never able to meet in person, what with me living in Kenya and all, but the few times we are, we usually try to grab lunch or coffee or something. He's a good guy, and I wish I had the chance to get to know him better.

I think that's about it, except for responding to some of the things people ask me or tell me aaaaaaaaalllllllll the time. Now I'll have the answers conveniently collected together.

Frequently Asked Questions!

 **Can you and Toothless come give a presentation / be on our show / etc.?**

Maybe. If you want me to bring Toothless to your university/show/etc. for a seminar or performance or something, please talk to our publicist. We don't do this stuff very often, but the only way you'd even have a chance of booking us is if you talk to Cherise waaaaay ahead of time.

 **I've seen you flying on TV, your flight suit is so cool! Can I fly on a dragon the way you do?**

Thank you! My flight suit is indeed very cool. Unfortunately, you won't be able to fly on a dragon. They won't even let you on their backs anyway unless they love you a lot.

 **Why won't you make a fin for Toothless that would let him fly by himself, without having to rely on a human every time he wants to fly?**

I actually did make a fully automatic fin prosthetic once - but, I kid you not, Toothless freaked out and smashed the thing up and threw it away as soon as I put it on him. Mom was filming us, so there is video proof. He either flies with me (or Mom, or maaaaaaaaaybe other people if he's in a good mood and we ask really nicely), or he refuses to fly at all. It's _his choice_ , we are not "suppressing his natural instincts" or whatever the animal protection extremists claim.

 **You're so lucky! Can I be a dragon treasure? Can my daughter/son grow up with a dragon and become its treasure?**

No, you (or your kid) cannot become a dragon treasure. The only reason I am one is because TOOTHLESS WAS ABUSED and I WAS ABUSED, and you'd be breaking about a hundred different laws if you tried.

 **Please tell me what I have to do to become a dracologist.**

Check the resource section at the back of this book. I do want to warn you that it is not an area of study you want to go into unless you _really love dragons_ , enough to put up with all the saliva and dung and smelliness and danger and dirt and fire that come with them.

 **I love Toothless, he's so cute, my dog/cat does those things, too. Is Toothless a dog/cat? I want a dragon for Christmas / my birthday / etc.!**

No, Toothless is not a dog, or a cat. (I get this one from kids.) He is a dragon. He _acts_ like a dog or a cat sometimes, but he is a dragon. And no, I'm sorry, but your parents cannot get you a pet dragon, even for Christmas or your birthday. A dog or a cat is a lot easier to take care of and less destructive, anyway. Trust me, you'll like having a pet dog or cat better than a pet dragon.

 **You and that dragon are pretty close, huh. Soooo, did the two of you ever...? *wink wink nudge nudge***

Again, no kinky dragon sex, sorry. Read Ogechi's book, it's fascinating. (She even made two versions: the first one for researchers with all the technobabble, and then a version in layman's language for casual readers.) Dragons don't have sex for fun the way humans do, they only mate to have babies. Since I can't make any Night Fury babies for Toothless, he's never been interested - and neither have I, for the record. Athletic blonde female humans with sassy intelligence and kindness, whose names rhyme with "Hastrid," are my type. Not winged scaly dudes with retractable teeth.

 **Can you sign this for me?**

Yes, if you ask at an official event, or if you catch me unofficially without being obnoxious and if I'm not in a hurry. In those cases, I will sign your nice, normal book/picture/arm/etc.

No, I will not sign your boob/butt/etc.

No, I absolutely will not autograph your picture of twelve-year-old me or eleven-year-old me in that stupid virgin sacrifice dress. I didn't even know how people _found_ those pictures until Seth explained some things to me about the Internet.

 **It's a** ** _dragon_** **! I don't believe that you lived in its cage since you were four years old and it never tried to attack you or eat you.**

Toothless never hurt me because Toothless is a good person. (I mean, sure, there were a couple of minor accidents when we were both little, but nothing serious enough to even leave a scar. I'm sure _you_ had some accidents when you were a little kid playing with your siblings, too.) He is kind and loving and friendly. He is a dragon, so he will react aggressively if you threaten him or scare him or tick him off, but little-kid me never did that. I always treated him the way I wanted to be treated, and he's always done the same. If _you_ had a little brother you absolutely adored and thought the world of, _you_ would never bite him or eat him or whatever, right?

 **(From people who write in:) Do you have any scars? (From people I meet in person:) Do you have more scars under your clothes? Can I see them?**

Yes, of course I have scars. No, I will not remove or adjust any clothing to show them to you.

 **Can Night Furies really heal people by licking them?**

They don't have amazing healing powers that will magically make an injury disappear, and they can't do anything about illnesses, but their saliva _does_ have antibacterial and numbing properties. My scars would be a lot worse if Toothless wasn't always licking me every time I got hurt. And yes, one of our projects at the reserve is working with Fury saliva, trying to see if we can make some effective and cost-efficient medical advances. And no, of course we would never let our dragons get hurt in the process.

 **Living in a cage for eight years must have been so awful!**

Actually, living with my dragon in his cage wasn't that bad. Yes, I wanted to see what the outside world was like sometimes, and yes, some things about it weren't so great. But the cage was pretty big, and keep in mind that the person I love most was always, always, always with me in that cage, and bad things usually happened to us whenever we had to leave the cage, and the cage prevented a lot of bad things from happening to us, so I've actually never resented the cage thing. To this day, whenever I can't be in the sky, I still feel safest when I can lock myself inside a not-too-large room with Toothless and hopefully Astrid.

 **Why didn't Toothless just blast out of the cage and escape?**

The cage was made of berkian alloy, the only metal that's resistant to Night Fury fire. It actually never even occurred to us to try to blast our way out of the cage, but even if it had, we would have already known it was no use. Toothless sometimes shot fireballs (not at me, of course) while we were playing or training or if he was upset, and they never had much impact on the bars.

I can't really explain why we never made any serious escape attempts. I think I sensed that we wouldn't have anywhere to go, and we both knew that we'd probably be recaptured again pretty quickly, and the punishment would have been _awful_ , so we never even tried.

 **What was the harem like?**

I actually don't know much about what went on inside the 'harem,' other than the basics and the stuff that came out during the trials and some things that Seth told me. I fell under Bludvist's jurisdiction; the others were managed by Hunter. Seth has written a memoir, too, so you can read that if you're interested in their side of the story.

 **You said your birth mother ran away with you when you were almost two, but you didn't come to the circus until you were four. What happened in between?**

I don't really remember anything about those two years I was unaccounted for. There are some really fuzzy images of rooms and people and my mother making me unhappy and (in hindsight) what I'm pretty sure are drugs, but I don't have any specific memories of anything before the circus. I wish I could at least remember my grandparents, but I don't.

 **Did you ever go to drug rehab?**

No, because I was never a drug addict. I have never knowingly, willingly taken drugs in my life. Please don't label me and make assumptions just because my biological parents chose to ruin their own lives, okay?

 **How come you never talk about being raped by Drago Bludvist?**

Because Drago Bludvist never raped me. Even Eret Hunter Sr. never raped me. Both of them are monsters and deserve more punishment than they ended up getting, but Hunter never touched me and I never saw Bludvist show the least interest in sex at all. I'm not defending them, I'm just tired of people jumping to conclusions and then spreading it around as if it's fact.

Speaking of Eret Hunters, there's a reason I always emphasize the "Sr.," and it's because Eret Hunter **_JR._** is one of my best friends. He had nothing to do with his father, he had no idea what his father was even doing to us until after we were rescued, but people have given him such hell about it that he was seriously considering changing his name for a while. The only reason he never got around to it is because I convinced him to move to Kenya with me, and no one bothers him on the reserve.

 **You probably would have never even met Toothless if you hadn't been sold and abused. Would you rather have had a normal life, knowing that Toothless wouldn't be part of it?**

No. That is _how much_ I love Toothless; if I'd known beforehand how much pain I'd have to go through, I'd still do it if that was the only way we could be together. When I say I'd do anything for Toothless, I really mean it, and I know he feels the same about me.

 **You should be ashamed of yourself, passing off a dragon as a 'service animal'!**

I did not 'pass off' Toothless as a service animal just to be selfish (and we never did claim he's a service animal, anyway). He was as good as one to me, because the panic attacks I suffered were real, and his comfort was real. If you _watch_ the videos, you'll see that he did things for me that real service animals will do for their handlers. And no, I really did not ever train him, I didn't even know for a long time that there are animals who are actually trained to help people cope with disabilities. I think that's really amazing.

Anyway, I needed Toothless very much for my mental and emotional health, even if it was hard to convince people of that sometimes, and it's obvious if you watch some of those old videos of us where I'm freaking out. I didn't train him, but Toothless loves me and somehow, I have no idea how, he knew exactly how to take care of me. Toothless is amazing. We're the same age, but a lot of times I felt like he was the older brother and I was the younger one.

 **Have you ever met Winter?**

Yes, I have met Winter the dolphin. She's awesome. There's a picture of me posing with her in the reserve's official photobook. No, Toothless has not met her, because unfortunately there was too much red tape to cut through.

 **Do you have any tattoos?**

Yes, I have a couple of tattoos. Not too many, because Dad threw a fit when I got the first one, and Astrid likes the ones I have but thinks too many tattoos isn't sexy anymore. I would go to great lengths to make sure that my body stays as sexy as possible for Astrid Hofferson-Vast's tastes.

 **Your life was so horrible. How can you ever be happy now?**

My _childhood_ was horrible; my life _now_ is fantastic. I have everything I could ask for, and the people I love are safe and happy. The circus didn't break me, and losing my leg didn't break me - I feel stronger than ever.

o.o.o

This is the end of the book. I couldn't think of anything suitably heartfelt and sappy to write at first, and none of the stuff Lupe came up with sounded like something I'd actually say. I hope you _really_ read this book, and didn't just skim for the 'juicy' parts and ignore the rest. I hope it helps you in some way, whether you've survived your own hell or even just feel inspired to be a little more compassionate toward others.

I've said a few times before that I would be dead if not for Toothless, and it's possible he'd be dead without me, too. That's actually what made me most inclined to believe in God.

Jennifer doesn't believe in God (or at least, not a loving and all-powerful one), because she says that if he does exist and he does love her, then he wouldn't have let her suffer the way she did. Seth got really interested in religion after the rescue, maybe because it was a preacher who tipped off the authorities in the first place, though Seth didn't quite buy the Christianity thing for a long time and sort of cobbled together various spiritual beliefs that he liked.

If nothing else, he wanted to believe that he and Jennifer were meant for each other in a literal sense, that he was trapped alongside her because maybe that was the only way he could have met and helped her. If that sounds similar to the way I feel about Toothless, it kind of is - even though they're separated now, he still loves her and hasn't given up hope that they can reconcile someday.

I don't know why innocent people suffer. (I've heard a few explanations; I'm still thinking about them.) I don't know if there's some cosmic reason too profound for us mere mortals to understand, or if even the most rotten and evil people should be given the same chances as decent people are given to do the right thing, or if the devil's going around wrecking everything good that he can, or whatever else the reason is supposed to be.

I do know that if Toothless _had_ to be captured and hurt, and if I _had_ to be born to parents who cared more about their next fix than they did about their own son, then it was a merciful God who sent Toothless and me to each other. Like I said, I would do it again if I had to, for my soul-twin's sake. He would have despaired if he hadn't had me to comfort him and love him and play with him and translate for him when humans were being so confusing and cruel. I am absolutely certain that I wouldn't have survived if Toothless hadn't comforted me and protected me and taken care of me and taught me what unconditional love is like.

There are a lot of wonderful, important things that would have never happened if the terrible ones hadn't. I can't even imagine what sort of person I would be if I hadn't grown up the way I did. I love my life so much right now, and my childhood seems so far away, that I'm almost glad things happened the way they did. (Almost.) I have to catch myself sometimes and wonder whether it's okay for me to feel that way. I still don't really have an answer to that.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that you can help people even if you can't help yourself. I think that in a lot of ways, they somehow end up being the same thing.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: Drago Bludvist is like Yukishiro Enishi in that both of them strike me as being either asexual, or too wrapped up in their Issues to care about sex. I think that's common with villains in children's stories for obvious reasons, but in-universe, I like the idea of a villain who would do really terrible things, yet have no interest in sexual perversion or even sex in general. (Maybe it's just because I really hate pervert villains; I dunno.)

 _Dolphin Tale_ is a movie based on a true story of a dolphin named Winter who lost her tail. She figured out an alternative way to swim, but her humans were worried that the unnatural motion would damage her spine. A prosthetic tail was eventually made for Winter; it's a really interesting story. A lot of amputees have visited Winter and feel a connection with her, and _Dolphin Tale 2_ has a cameo by Bethany Hamilton, a surfer who's famous for re-mastering her craft after losing one of her arms in a shark attack. I figured it would make sense if Hiccup (who eventually becomes a famous amputee in this AU) were to visit Winter at some point as well.

It occurred to me that this is the first thing I've written from Hiccup's first person POV. XD For some reason, his canon self intimidates me when it comes to getting so fully into his head. ^^; For this AU, the first draft of the memoir sounded too much like Jake Mendoza's narration style; I had to tone down the defensive teenager tone. XD Speaking of which, some elements of this story were inspired by Robin McKinley's _Dragonhaven_ , which, as I keep saying, is my favorite dragon book - I LOVE how she writes dragons in modern times, I've never seen anyone else write about dragons that way. (Susan Fletcher is the only other person I know of who's written a dragons-in-modern-times book, but I haven't gotten a chance to actually read it yet.)

I decided that I friendShip Hiccup & Eret. I think that Eret is by far the best candidate for being Hiccup's best friend (or, to be more precise, his best human male friend). I think their personalities are pretty well suited to each other, and they'd get along nicely once they started getting familiar with each other.


	13. The One Thing That's Right

**_Dragon Treasure: The One Thing That's Right_** **(rough draft), a DreamWorks'** ** _How to Train Your Dragon_** **fanfic by Raberba girl**

Summary: A captive Night Fury hatchling befriends the four-year-old boy who has been locked inside his cage.

o.o.o

Ever since the dragon hatched, he has known only confusion and pain and anger and fear. He senses that none of these creatures are the mama he knows he's supposed to have, none of these horrible creatures take care of him or love him. Something is _wrong_ with his world, he doesn't know what it is, but he knows that something is _missing_ , and that it's _not supposed to be this way_.

There's food. There's pain and there's confusion/anger/fear, and there's food; nothing else. The food is the only thing he likes, the only thing that helps him to a little bit forget how wrong the world is.

He hates those creatures, those monsters. They confuse him and hurt him and hate him; he wonders if they're crazy and dead inside even though their bodies are alive. He hates them so much that sometimes his outrage overpowers even his hunger, and he will lunge and scream and bite and try hard to _expel_ that hot something inside of him that wants to be let out. He wants their bodies to become as dead as their souls, then maybe they won't hurt him anymore.

There's something behind him, something _alive_ , he didn't notice it in his fury and he bumped into it. He whirls around and squawks in fear, one of _them_ is here inside his aerie with him, very small but so _close_ , it will hurt him before he can hurt it...!

He hides. As he hides, he smells and he watches.

The small monster thing is frightened, too, just like he is. It's male, so it's a him; _he's_ not trying to hurt the dragon, so maybe he's not a monster.

o.o.o.o.o

Small Scary Thing is not going away. He is huddled miserably in a corner of the aerie, shivering.

The dragon approaches cautiously, curiosity and boredom finally overcoming his fear. But he inhales only one sniff when the creature bolts, squealing in fear. The dragon growls and pounces, pinning his target so that he can investigate the small creature properly. The thing is still shaking and mewling under his paws, smelling tantalizingly of fear, but the dragon will not eat this thing. He sniffs the fur on the monster cub's head which feels so pleasantly soft on his nose, and he sniffs the pale fragile flesh, and the racing pulse, and also the very dead plants and human stink of the cub's not-skin coverings.

"Scary, don't...don't, no...no..."

The dragon has never heard sounds like these before. The cub's high, clear voice is so different than the rumbling growls of the adult male monsters, or the rasping whines of the few females. The dragon makes a curious croaking sound - and is surprised when the not-monster cub clumsily repeats it.

 _"Interested."_

 _"Interested."_

 _"Surprised!"_

 _"Surprised?"_

 _"Inquiry?"_

 _"Inquiry."_

 _"Approval."_

 _"Approval."_

The dragon purrs, liking this new toy. He licks what he can reach of that pale fragile skin, renaming the creature, then curls around Interesting Thing to share warmth. The not-monster cub has stopped shivering.

o.o.o

Hadley has no coherent thoughts for a long time, his heart is so consumed by pain. Betrayed and abandoned, trapped in a dragon's cage with no one lifting a finger to help him, they might as well have buried him alive.

A soft touch. The dragon is _here_ , looming over him, about to devour him.

Terror seizes Hadley's limbs and sends him scurrying away. The dragon will catch him, it will eat him, its fierce teeth will sink into his flesh...

It catches him. Hadley screams in terror, struggling, but he can't get away from those _eyes_ , the claws are digging into him, he's going to die, huge green eyes staring at him-

It's not eating him. It's sniffing and sniffing, occasionally licking, but those teeth aren't biting him. It wants to know more about him. It's _deciding_.

"Scary, don't," Hadley manages to say with his limited vocabulary, which is underdeveloped from two years of almost never being spoken to. "Don't, no...no..." _'Please don't kill me,'_ he would say if he knew the words. _'Please don't kill me, and I'll be your friend; we won't be lonely anymore.'_

The sound the dragon makes next is not scary. It's _talking_ to him. Two years, half his life, of being ignored and eating spilled food off the floor and a few times spilled drugs because they looked like or were laced into food, two years of sleeping on filthy floors and being dragged around by his dead-eyed mother like a tiresome piece of luggage, two years of staying quiet and out of sight so they wouldn't _hurt_ him the way they did when they weren't ignoring him...

This dragon is talking to him, this dragon is looking at him and _seeing_ him and might not hurt him. Hadley's heart yearns toward the benign attention like a flower turning its face toward the sun. He wants to talk back to this dragon but he doesn't know _what_ it's saying, so he imitates the noise it made as best he can.

It makes another noise and sniffs at him again. He repeats the noise and inhales the dragon's scent, which is unlike anything he's ever smelled before and is a lot nicer than what he's used to.

The dragon _purrs_. Hadley has met cats before; he knows that purring means they're happy. This dragon is happy and will not hurt him. Hadley reaches up to pet the dragon like he would pet a cat. Its hide is dry and tough, not soft and fluffy at all, but it's warm. Hadley giggles at the tickling sensation when the dragon's tongue bathes his skin.

The dragon no longer pins him down; it curls around him so that he's cradled against its body. It's so _warm_ , he doesn't even need a blanket now like he did before. He falls asleep.

o.o.o.o.o

The boys wake up at the same time the next morning. The initial misery they both always feel when they regain consciousness quickly gives way to hope this time, as they see each other and remember that there is a new thing in the world that's interesting and warm and won't hurt them.

"Guh morrin," Hadley says, very vaguely remembering the pancakes that often went along with that phrase, but not at all remembering the grandmother who used to tell him 'Good morning' as she served those pancakes.

The dragon licks the same kind of greeting on Hadley's face, making the boy giggle.

They both yawn and stretch. The dragon ambles over to a certain smelly corner of the cage to urinate, so Hadley follows suit. Then, curious and playful, the dragon lightly bats at his new toy and sniffs him and chases him. Hadley smiles widely as he flails back and runs away, and laughs when he's knocked down and licked.

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching strikes dismay and fear into them both. They scramble up and huddle together at the back of the cage.

Drago Bludvist, their master who owned one of them from birth and now owns the other as well, glowers at them for a minute. "...Still alive, I see."

The dragon suddenly lunges, snarling and flaring his wings and lashing his tail. _"STAY AWAY from My Thing, you that I hate must stay away away_ _away_ _from this thing that I very much like!"_

Tears are sliding unnoticed down Hadley's face. Someone is _protecting_ him. Someone has rushed between him and danger, and is demanding that the danger go away. He loves this thing, the only _right_ thing in his world, he loves this friend who protects him, and he knows without conscious thought that he will just as readily defend his new companion when his own turn comes.

Bludvist contemptuously flings a bucket of fish into the cage. "Well, _dragon trainer_. Let's see if you're able to start earning your keep. Eat that - you'll get nothing else - and then I'll be back." He stalks away.

When the dragon is sure that the monster is gone, he tears into the meal.

Hadley hesitates. He has eaten garbage before, he has eaten drugs, he has eaten things that were contaminated or undercooked or starting to rot, but he's never bitten into a raw fish. But his friend is devouring the things with gusto, and soon there will be none left... Hadley reaches out and takes hold of a fish.

The dragon automatically snarls, defending his precious food; Hadley immediately lets go and staggers back, betrayed. Then the dragon recognizes him and remembers that there is one creature in this world who is not an enemy, who is even a friend.

The dragon cringes and whimpers in apology, but the boy continues cowering. The dragon picks up the fish and shuffles close and lays it at his friend's feet. Hadley still won't touch it, but when the dragon croaks beseechingly and nudges the fish closer, Hadley finally believes the apology. Subconsciously thinking that maybe he was punished for trying to grasp the fish with his hands like a human, this time he kneels down and lowers his head and closes his teeth on the fish.

It's unpleasantly slimy and squishy and smelly. Hadley chews and swallows, and looks unhappily at the rest of the unappetizing meal. He's eaten worse before, but he didn't like it, and he doesn't like this either, but there's nothing else to eat and he is so _hungry_.

The dragon knows instinctively that not all dragons eat their food raw, that some like to cook it first. He sees that his friend is unhappy with the fish but he can tell that the boy is hungry, so he carefully takes the fish in his mouth and tries to cook it.

He is very young, only a hatchling still. He can't shoot properly yet, much less cook, and the fish ends up black and crumbly and inedible to an ordinary human. But the stiff brown flesh beneath the shedding black exterior, its nutrients now lost, at least tastes better than the slimy raw squishiness had, so Hadley eats it.

There are two more fish left. The dragon undercooks one to hot goo and then burns the last one to a crisp again, but Hadley manages to get enough into his stomach to curb his hunger.

They will be together for the rest of their lives. The dragon will have plenty of time to practice. By the time he can cook his other half's meals to perfection, his name will be 'Toothless,' and the boy known as Hiccup will have forgotten his birth name. They will both have lost much for the sake of their bond, but neither of them will ever regret it.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: **If you haven't already, please vote in the new poll on my FFN profile - I'm going to revamp my interpretation of Hiccup & Astrid's relationship, and I'd like to know what my readers think of my current interpretation.**

Today I worked at the job that gives me a lot of time to write. I finished what I could of my albino Night Fury FC's real story (couldn't figure out how to end it), wrote all of _The One Thing That's Right_ in one sitting (I've had the idea for a long time but didn't get a chance to actually write it until now), and started a semi-AU idea that I've been thinking about for a while. I typed up this story and posted it the same evening when I came home. XD I love that job (bridge caddying), I wish it was a real job instead of just an as-needed thing...

(I also wish that so many bridge players wouldn't keep asking me what I'm writing. X''''D Most of them know that I'm not a student anymore. I guess they might just be pleasantly surprised to see someone scribbling in a notebook for fun instead of glued to a cell phone, and I'm fine with being teased about writing a "diary" or "love letters," but I hate when they ask and genuinely want to know the answer. X'''''D I'm kind of embarrassed to be a writer, and definitely embarrassed to still be a _fanfiction_ writer at my age...I can barely admit that I'm writing fiction, and I never tell them that it's fanfiction [though they've probably never heard of fanfiction]... ^^; )


	14. First Halloween

_**Dragon Treasure: First Halloween**_ **(rough draft), a DreamWorks'** _ **How to Train Your Dragon**_ **fanfic by Raberba girl**

Summary: Hiccup & Toothless's first Halloween in the real world.

o.o.o

Hiccup seemed mildly curious about the concept of Halloween when they explained it to him, but when he found out that Toothless would not be allowed to go trick-or-treating with him, he immediately lost all interest.

It took a lot of coaxing to get him to plan a Halloween costume, and even then, he seemed more interested in simply having a project to occupy him than in the idea of putting the costume to proper use. He spent several days working slowly but very carefully to sew along the lines that had been marked for him on the black wing-shaped pieces of cloth. On October 31st, he put on the black clothing, wig, wings, and tail, and submitted to having his face, neck, and hands painted until he looked like a human version of Toothless.

Then he refused to leave the house.

"Well," Valka finally said, "I suppose you can help us hand out candy..."

"Maybe you'll feel like heading out yourself once you see how much fun everyone else is having," Stoick suggested.

The first time the doorbell rang, Toothless trotted up to investigate, with Hiccup at his heels. As soon as Stoick opened the door, "Trick or treat!" wasn't even completely out of the children's mouths before they caught sight of the Night Fury, screamed, and ran away.

Toothless stared after them, head plates cocked in confusion. Then he looked at Hiccup, who was laughing. "You scared them, buddy." Toothless made a questioning noise. "You scared them! They thought you were a monster~"

Toothless trotted away again, returning to the squeaky toy he and Hiccup had been playing with before the interruption.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again. Toothless barked and headed back to the door. Just as before, the trick-or-treaters took one look at him, emitted piercing shrieks, and ran.

"We're going to have a _lot_ of candy left by the end of the night, aren't we," Stoick remarked.

This time, Toothless didn't leave. He stayed in the living room, peering out the windows. As soon as he saw another group of trick-or-treaters approaching the house, he whirled around, eagerly galloped to the door, waited impatiently for Stoick to open it, then snapped his wings open and unleashed a mighty roar in the children's shocked faces. When the children fled, he retracted his teeth into a grin.

"This is _amazing_!" Valka cried in delight, her camera rolling. "Look how quickly he figured out the pattern! He turned it into a _game_ , completely on his own initiative! And those _sounds_ , I've only ever heard Cloudjumper make those sounds before, and only after I'd known him for many months - that's not a dragon sound, he's imitating human laughter! Just like he learned how to smile from Hiccup, now he's laughing like we do! He's trying to use our own 'language' to tell us humans that he is amused, this is _fascinating_!"

"You are never off the clock these days, are you," Stoick chuckled.

"When I'm literally living with a Night Fury? _Never_."

By now, both Toothless and Hiccup were crouching eagerly at the windows, waiting. As soon as the next batch of visitors headed their way, they tensed in preparation, then barged into view when Stoick opened the door and roared in unison.

"Oh sh-!" These trick-or-treaters were teenagers, who shrieked surprised profanity but didn't flee very far. Staring, unable to believe their eyes, the bravest of them edged back toward the house, staring at Toothless, who was now grinning again with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, looking very pleased with himself. "It's a _dragon_! It's a freakin' dragon, man! Holy...!"

The teens grew brave enough to pet and croon at Toothless, who basked in the attention. Hiccup basked right along with him, and proudly answered all the excited questions being thrown at him. Then the teens took their candy, shouted some more in delight, and finally left, talking excitedly about the Night Fury until they were out of earshot.

"I like Halloween," Hiccup giggled.

"Well, at least you found a way to have fun..."

When Stoick saw the next group approaching, he said quickly, "No, Hiccup, hold him back, there's a toddler with this group, it'll be too much for that little one."

Toothless whined and struggled, then obeyed sulkily when Hiccup ordered him to lie down. He was soothed a little when he was rewarded with a treat and caresses. "Next one, bud," Hiccup crooned. "Don't worry, we'll get the next group."

The next time the doorbell rang, it was actually one of the previous trick-or-treaters who had been scared off the first time. When Toothless came roaring at him, the boy, looking thrilled, yelled and jumped back, but he didn't run far. His mother screamed as he hid behind her, then stared in shocked confusion as Toothless dropped the ferocity, grinning and chortling. The little boy laughed in excited relief. "I TOLD you there was a dragon, Mama, I TOLD you~!"

"That's a _real_ dragon?!" the mother shrieked.

"It's all right, he's very tame," Stoick hastened to assure her. He crouched down beside Toothless and held out the candy basket invitingly. "Come on over, son, we've got some treats for you. Don't worry, he won't hurt you."

"He's a nice dragon?" the boy inquired shyly, starting to edge closer.

His mother seized him in a panic. "What are you DOING with a real dragon in your house?!"

"It's okay," Hiccup said, starting to look a little offended. "We're just playing. We're _supposed_ to scare people on Halloween, right?"

"And before you ask, I've got a permit," Stoick said. "The police know about him, _and_ he's a service animal for my foster son. He's very tame."

Restless from all the talking, Toothless trotted out into the yard and sniffed at the boy, who giggled and tentatively patted him. "Look, Mama, he's a nice dragon." His mother scooped him up and carried him away. "Bye, dragon!" the little boy called, waving over his mother's shoulder.

"His name is Toothless," Hiccup called back.

"Bye, Toothless~!"

Toothless barked, then went back into the house and resumed lying in wait.

The next group that rang the doorbell included a toddler again, but this time, it was one who was already familiar with Toothless. The mother chatted with Stoick and Valka as her frightened four-year-old cowered behind her, and her two-year-old happily patted at the Night Fury with sticky hands. "Toofie."

Toothless warbled in greeting and licked her face.

"Hi, Jessica," Hiccup said.

The little girl pointed at him. "Dragon!"

"Yeah, I'm a dragon for Halloween."

The next visitors were the teenagers again, this time with a couple of friends who were not in costume. The trick-or-treaters exploded with laughter as their newcomer friends screamed and ran halfway across the yard before they realized they were being made fun of. "Motherf-! That's an effin' dragon, man! STOP LAUGHING, MAN!"

Late that night, Hiccup curled up on the living room floor with his head pillowed on Toothless, munching on leftover Halloween candy after he'd given the dragon a dog chew. Valka was eagerly reviewing the new video footage she'd collected. Stoick, rather than watching the _Twilight Zone_ episode which was playing on TV, was smiling at his foster sons. "That was better than you thought it would be, eh?"

"You said I had to _leave Toothless_ to go trick-or-treating," Hiccup accused.

"Well, technically you didn't go trick-or-treating..."

"Next time, I'll make a costume for Toothless, too," Hiccup said. He yawned and scratched the base of the dragon's wing. "Happy Halloween, Toothless." Toothless warbled back in satisfaction.

o.o.o

Author's Notes: **Even though Toothless isn't** _ **technically**_ **a service animal, there are some circumstances where it's easier to call him one, especially in cases like this when the distinction between a service animal and an ESA isn't important.**

I know this is a month late, but I didn't get the idea for it until Thanksgiving 2015. (I'd actually been brainstorming ideas for Christmas fics, but got an idea for a Thanksgiving one and a Halloween one instead. ^^; I might, if I have the time and inspiration, do a whole bunch of holidays fics in the "Dragon Treasure" AU.) I drafted it as soon as we got home from celebrating Thanksgiving at my sister's house.

 **For the record, I** _ **loathe**_ **Halloween, both because the "celebration of the demonic" aspect of it is against my religion AND because I developed a phobia of trick-or-treaters a few years ago.** (Trick-or-treaters [in proximity to me, not far away or in fiction] genuinely freak me out regardless of how they're dressed, I have no idea why. *sweatdrop* I also don't know why I developed the phobia as an adult, because when I was a child/teenager, I enjoyed trick-or-treating as much as any other kid.) **But I guess, objectively, there's nothing wrong with the dressing-up-in-(non-demonic)-costumes-and-collecting-candy aspect, so I hope it's okay for me to post this...**

I have been slowly but steadily catching up on e-mail! :D Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and/or sent me messages, I love hearing from you!


End file.
